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Greg shoved his hands in the pocket of his black puffer coat as he stomped across the light dusting of snow on the car park at the Taskmaster House, trying not to shiver. He was already in a bad mood from having to drive out to fucking Chiswick, and he had a feeling his mood was only going to get worse.
When Alex had sent him a message earlier in the week letting him know there was snow in the forecast, he’d assumed the other man had lost what little remained of his mind, or had decided to add ‘Greg’s personal weatherman’ to his unnecessarily long list of Taskmaster-related job duties. It was only after he saw Andy’s follow-up email about filming snow scenes at the Taskmaster House that he remembered that they’d agreed, a long time ago now, to film some footage out there the next time it snowed.
It had been an easy agreement to make in the height of summer, and when he and Alex were still—
“Greg!” Andy D called, waving him over, and Greg huffed a sigh that clouded in front of his face.
Time to get his game face on.
“Alex is changing in the lab,” Andy told him, even though Greg hadn’t asked, walking with him into the house. “You want a tea or a coffee before we get started?”
“Coffee’d be great, yeah,” Greg said, scrubbing a tired hand across his face.
He’d slept like shit. The makeup people were going to earn their salaries today.
“And, er, give some thought to what you’d like for lunch,” Andy said, gesturing for Greg to head into the small, cramped green room.
But Greg blanched at the thought. “Lunch?” he repeated, trying not to sound as stricken as he felt. “I thought we were only filming for a couple hours today.”
Andy’s brow furrowed. “Didn’t Alex send you the updated schedule?” he asked. “It’s supposed to start snowing again this afternoon, so we wanted to push the outside stuff for when it’s snowing and film some updated inside shots this morning.” He hesitated. “If that, er, works for you, at least.”
Greg knew he was only asking to be polite, that they’d already scheduled the camera crew and everyone else to be there and it’d be absolute diva behaviour of him to tell them all to fuck off as much as he might desperately want to.
Well, that wasn’t entirely fair. There was really only one person he wanted to tell to fuck off, but that person was apparently taking his sweet time getting ready in the lab, despite Greg knowing for a fact it took him less than two minutes to get dressed, even when he was picking his clothes from the previous day off of Greg’s bedroom floor in the pitch dark.
“Yeah, of course,” he said instead. “But if anyone so much as thinks of dressing me in a Santa costume, I’m dunking them in the Thames.”
Andy laughed. “Wouldn’t dream of it,” he assured Greg, in such a way that told Greg they’d had at least two production meetings where the idea had been floated before someone had shot it down.
The only person who would’ve was Alex, as he was the only one who’d had to sit through Greg’s rant about being told he looked like Father Christmas.
Once upon a time, the idle thought of Alex sticking up for him in a production meeting would’ve warmed him all over. Now he just felt it like a sad twinge in his chest.
“I’ll bring you your coffee soon,” Andy told him before finally shutting the door, leaving Greg alone with his thoughts of the man he’d apparently be spending the better part of the day with.
He did his best to shove those thoughts aside as he changed into his Taskmaster suit, and for the most part succeeded, enough that he almost sounded cheerful when a knock sounded on the door. “Come in,” he said, not looking up from where he’d been scrolling through his phone. “Is that my– ah.”
“Ah,” Alex repeated, raising both eyebrows, his hand still on the doorknob. “Just wanted to check in before we got started.”
“Right,” Greg managed, the word sticking in his throat.
Something flickered in Alex’s expression, something Greg couldn’t quite read. “Maybe we should—” he started, but then Andy peered around Alex’s shoulder.
“Greg, your coffee,” he said. “And we’re ready for both of you.”
Alex took the coffee from Andy, who disappeared into the living room, and held it out for Greg. “Here,” he said, and Greg nodded his thanks.
“Cheers,” he said, grabbing the mug and very carefully not letting his fingers linger on Alex’s.
No matter how much he might want to.
All told, it wasn’t exactly an auspicious start to the day, but luckily, getting in the character of the Taskmaster had never been easier.
The morning was filled with the usual filming of Greg being cross with Alex or looming ominously in the background while Alex did menial tasks, or even just Greg walking briskly through the various rooms and the corridor. The editors were geniuses for what they managed to cut together from this sort of thing, and luckily, he wasn’t really required to be anything but stern, which worked well enough for him.
Even more luckily, Alex got pulled aside during lunch, meaning Greg got to spend the time chatting to the crew instead, which was always lovely.
And then it was time for the outdoors recording.
True to what Andy had said, it had started snowing lightly during lunch, which even Greg had to admit was almost certainly going to end up looking lovely on film. They filmed him and Alex doing a variety of wintery things, Alex pretending to shovel the walk, both of them making snow angels, Alex making a snowman while Greg looked on (Greg assumed the snowman’d be digitally altered in post to look like him, since that was the sort of thing production liked to do) and so on.
He’d been provided with his choice of beanie or ear muffs for the shoot – he opted for beanie, Alex of course went with a monstrous pair of fuzzy red ear muffs – and a pair of knit gloves but had opted out of any additional outerwear, reasoning that the Taskmaster would not deign to let something as trivial as the temperature affect his signature look.
By hour three, he was beginning to regret that assertion.
“You all right?” Alex asked as he brushed past Greg with an armful of fairy lights to pretend to decorate the tree.
“Freezing my bollocks off,” Greg muttered through clenched teeth, which was true. Even if that was only half of the reason why he felt as lousy as he did.
Alex’s brow furrowed but he didn’t push the issue, and it ended up being a moot point anyway since Andy called a wrap not too long thereafter anyway. “I think we’ve got everything,” he said, checking one of the monitors. “And we’re losing the light anyway.”
“Bloody winter,” Greg muttered sourly, glaring up at the dark grey sky and immediately getting a face full of snowflakes for his effort. He shook his head and started towards the house when—
Thwack.
Greg froze, turning slowly around to face Alex, who stared at him with wide eyes, his mouth open in surprise as if he hadn’t been the one to lob the snowball currently melting a trail down the back of Greg’s suit jacket.
“Did you just—”
Thwap.
Another snowball hit Greg, this time on his shoulder, and the corners of Alex’s lips twitched towards a smile. “Oops?” he offered, and Greg couldn’t quite stop his own grin in response.
“Oops my arse, you fucking—”
He bent to gather a handful of snow, packing it together between his hands before he straightened. Almost immediately, a third snowball hit him, this time directly in the face, causing him to drop his own snowball. “You little prick!” Greg half-shouted, even though he was laughing as he tried to wipe the snow from his glasses. “You’re going to regret that when I get ahold of you.”
He charged forward, thoroughly intending to grab Alex around the waist and pull him down into the snow, but Alex was too fast, darting out of reach, so instead Greg grabbed another handful of snow, chucking it at Alex’s retreating back.
From there, it devolved into a full out snowball fight, both men ducking behind the caravan and the hutch and continuing to throw snowballs at each other while the crew mostly hung around watching and cheering them on. Greg laughed so hard his side hurt, the cold entirely forgotten as he and Alex acted like children instead of the adults they very much were.
He was fairly certain he saw someone with a camera and he paused, turning to scowl at the crew. “If any footage of this gets out—” he started threateningly when Alex again hit him in the side of the face with a snowball.
“You fucking—” he started, turning to get his retribution when he slipped on an icy patch on the walkway and toppled forward, his knee taking the brunt of the impact against the slick pavement.
Greg groaned and rolled onto his back, blinking up at the sky, which was now almost black. “Fucking hell,” he winced.
Alex’s face immediately appeared above him, his eyes wide with worry. “Are you all right?” he asked sharply, and Greg nodded even as he winced again.
“I’m fine,” he said, “I just—”
He started to sit up but Alex planted a hand on his chest. “We should call an ambulance,” he said over his shoulder, and Greg rolled his eyes.
“Fuck’s sake, I’m fine,” he protested. “My knee’s a bit fucked but what else is new—” Alex didn’t move his hand and Greg scowled. “Mate, I don’t think letting me freeze to death on the ground is going to help,” he said impatiently.
Alex finally let him sit up, though Greg was fairly certain he heard him mutter under his breath, “Might do.”
The little shit.
Greg reached down to rub his knee, hissing as he felt how swollen it already was. “Guess I’ll have to cancel my ski holiday,” he said, aiming to make Alex laugh or at least crack a smile at the idea of him skiing, but Alex didn’t, the serious look on his face a strange counterpoint to how pink his cheeks and nose still were.
“Can you get inside?” Alex asked, and Greg nodded.
“Yeah, I just need five or six of you to help me off the ground, cheers—”
He meant it as a joke, but that was about what it took to get him upright, and he latched an arm around Andy’s neck so that he could hobble inside where he collapsed on the sofa, stretching his leg out as best he could. “Christ, that’s going to be a spectacular bruise,” he said to no one in particular as he prodded his knee carefully. He looked up to see everyone standing around watching him and he groaned. “Go on, get out of here,” he ordered, waving a dismissive hand. “I’m just going to take a quick breather before I drag myself home, no need for everyone to watch an old man limp to his car.”
No one moved and Greg scowled. “I mean it,” he said. “Everyone out or I will have you lot fired.”
That at least earned him a few pity chuckles, but far more importantly, it got everyone moving, finally packing up their kit and getting ready to go. Greg closed his eyes mostly to avoid their stares, only opening them again when Andy squeezed his shoulder. “You sure you’re all right?” he asked, his brow furrowed. “I live nearby, if you want to come to mine, or I’m happy to take you to hospital—”
“I promise the only thing I need is a bit of quiet to get my head on straight before I head back to the city,” Greg told him. “Thank you, though.”
Andy hesitated a moment longer before glancing behind him at something or someone Greg couldn’t see. “Right,” he said. “Well, I’ll leave you to it, then.”
With that, he left, and Greg breathed a sigh of relief that immediately turned into yet another wince as his knee protested his attempt to shift positions. “Fuck,” he sighed. “I really should’ve sent someone to get me—”
“Some ice?” Alex supplied, and Greg tilted his head back to see Alex hovering in his usual awkward way, holding something a tea towel. “We didn’t, er, bring anyone from health and safety, didn’t think we needed it, and there will be a bollocking from the studio, I’m sure, but in the meantime, I’m afraid you’ll have to settle for me.”
He said it in the too-fast way he had when he was nervous, and Greg just shook his head and held his hand out for the tea towel. It squished suspiciously in his hand in a way that ice wouldn’t, and he unwrapped a corner of it to find— “A snowball?” he asked dryly, arching an eyebrow at Alex. “Really? After everything?”
Alex shrugged, not quite smiling. “There wasn’t any ice in the freezer, so I figured we could make do,” he said. Greg rolled his eyes but nonetheless obediently placed the tea towel-wrapped snowball on his knee, exhaling sharply at the almost instantaneous relief. “How’s the knee?”
“Old and shitty,” Greg said, “but that was true before I decided to faceplant on the walkway.”
Alex nodded, crossing his arms in front of his chest. He’d changed already, Greg realised, swapping his assistant’s suit for one of his usual garish jumpers, and Greg wondered when he’d had time to do it. “Sorry for starting the snowball fight.”
Greg shook his head. “No, you’re not.”
Another almost but not quite smile from Alex. “Not really, no,” he agreed, worrying his lower lip between his teeth before telling Greg, “I just– today was meant to be fun.”
He sounded almost wistful, and Greg frowned, his free hand closing into a fist to keep from reaching for him on instinct. “Yeah.”
“You weren’t having fun.”
If anything, Alex sounded even more upset than before, and Greg grimaced. “I was trying,” he said apologetically, which wasn’t entirely a lie.
Not that it mattered, since Alex clearly didn’t believe him. “Mm.”
“Admittedly not very hard,” Greg said with a half-smile.
Alex nodded as if he’d expected as such. “So I just wanted one moment of actual fun.” He paused before adding, “Like we used to have.”
The breath caught in Greg’s throat, and he swallowed, hard. “You and I are never going to not have fun together, mate,” he said finally, his voice gruff. “That I can promise.”
Something in Alex’s face relaxed, the furrow in his brow smoothing, at least for a moment. “Good.”
There was so much Greg wanted to say to him that he knew he wouldn’t be able to take back if he did, so he cleared his throat and he looked away. “Will you do me a favour?”
“Of course, anything,” Alex said instantly.
“Can you get my clothes?” Greg asked. “I don’t feel like limping back to the green room and, well. It’s not anything you’ve not seen before.”
He could see the automatic joke flit across Alex’s expression, just as he could see the moment he decided it wasn’t worth saying. “Yeah, of course,” he said instead. “Be right back.”
Greg used his absence to lever himself off the sofa, gingerly putting a little weight on his bad knee until he was confident it wasn’t going to buckle underneath him. Then he stripped down to just his pants and vest, figuring he’d make the most of whatever was taking Alex so long.
“Ah,” Alex said, pausing in the doorway, holding Greg’s clothes in his arms. “Right. I’ll just, er…”
He thrust the pile of clothes at Greg before crossing over to the doors, studiously keeping his back to him. Greg rolled his eyes. “You’ve seen worse than this,” he reminded Alex, unnecessarily, carefully pulling his jeans on over his bad knee.
Alex just hummed in what might have been agreement. “Wow, it’s really coming down out there,” he said, pressing his face against the window like a small child.
Greg shook his head fondly. “You can turn around now,” he said, zipping up his trousers.
Alex turned around, looking slightly flushed in a way that Greg didn’t think had to do from the cold of the window. “Are you good to, er, limp out to your car?”
Greg nodded. “I think I’ll manage, yeah.”
Alex nodded as well, though something unreadable flashed across his face as Greg reached for his coat. “Or we could stay.”
“Stay?” Greg repeated, glancing at him.
“Spend the night here,” Alex said, and Greg’s heart gave a traitorous little stutter in his chest. “Say we got snowed in while we were taking care of your knee.” He shrugged in what he seemed to think was an offhand sort of way. “Could be fun.”
But Greg knew it wouldn’t be.
Or at least, it would be while it lasted, but when they inevitably parted ways tomorrow, Alex to go back to his family, Greg to go back to his empty flat, he knew he wouldn’t be able to find anything fun in that.
There was a world where they stayed, where they let themselves get snowed in and dug the little camp stove out of the props trailer to heat up some sausages or whatever was in the fridge for dinner. Where they stayed up too late and laughed too much and when they both got tired, neither even bothered suggesting anything other than curling up together under the same blanket, the cushions from the couch acting as a makeshift mattress on the floor. Where they woke up still tangled up in each other and spent the morning lazily trading kisses and trying to convince the other to get up and make coffee. Where they both managed to forget, for at least the next twelve or so hours, why they had stopped doing this in the first place.
But for any number of reasons, it wasn’t this one.
“You should go home,” he heard himself say, the words – his words – popping the cosy bubble of what could be in his mind. “You’ve got a bit of a drive ahead of you.”
“Yeah,” Alex said, after a long moment that Greg spent studiously looking anywhere but at him. “That’s probably for the best.”
It was.
Greg just wished that knowing that made it hurt less.
“Will you, er, send me a message when you get home?” Alex asked, playing with the cuff of his jumper. “So I know you made it safely?”
“Of course I will, yeah,” Greg said, hesitating for only a moment before holding his arm out. “Come here.”
He wrapped Alex in a hug, the smaller man turning his head to rest his cheek against Greg’s chest like he had done more times than either of them could count. “Happy Christmas, Greg,” he murmured.
Greg allowed himself one tiny indulgence, even though he knew he shouldn't, bending to kiss the top of Alex’s head. “Happy Christmas, Alex,” he said, squeezing him for one moment longer before letting go. “Give my love to Rachel.”
Alex took a measured step back, his expression impassive. “Of course.” He hesitated. “Let me at least help you to your car.”
Greg couldn’t find it in himself to say no.
He looped an arm around Alex’s shoulders and Alex wrapped his arm around his waist, resting his other hand on Greg’s ample stomach as they slowly made their way out to the car park, the snow falling silently down around them. It was a move made intimate only by their shared history, by the years and laughs and, yes, love between them.
Every step was agony, less because of his knee pain, throbbing as it was, and more because Greg felt that they were, together, finally walking away from what they’d once had, and what they could have been.
It seemed to take forever, that short walk together, and yet all too soon they were at Greg’s car, and Greg slid into the driver’s seat, wincing as he bent his knee and pulled his leg inside. Then he looked up at Alex. “Well,” he said, for lack of anything better to say.
Alex nodded as if he understood. “I should go, erm, lock up,” he said, jerking a thumb back towards the house. “Get home safe.”
“Yeah,” Greg said. “You too.”
He watched Alex make his way back toward the house, his hands stuffed in his pockets, his chin tucked against the snow, the sight blurring the longer Greg stared. And when he tipped his head back against the headrest of his car and closed his eyes for just a moment, the ache that he felt had nothing to do with his injured knee.