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“I don’t know why you’re making such a big deal of this,” Alex said crossly, shouldering the door to the studio open.
Greg followed him inside, scowling. “Because it is a big deal,” he insisted, with the tenor of someone who had been making this argument for at least the past half hour and showed no sign of giving up on it any time soon. “Because you’ve been lying to me for the past decade, and I think I’m allowed to think that’s a big deal!”
Alex huffed a sigh and scrubbed both hands across his face. “I didn’t lie to you—” he started, though he was interrupted by Andy Cartwright, who met them in the corridor.
“Good morning,” Andy said cheerfully, though he shrank back slightly as both Alex and Greg gave him matching annoyed looks.
“Is it?” Greg asked sourly, and Alex rolled his eyes.
“Will you please tell Greg,” he started, and Andy looked suddenly like he’d very much rather be literally anywhere else, “that he was my only choice to play the Taskmaster?”
Before Andy could even take a breath to respond, Greg interjected hotly, “Whether or not I was your only choice, which is a bit of a massive whether at this point, mate, that doesn’t change the fact that the studio apparently had a list of choices, and I wasn’t top of that, was I?”
Both men glared at each other and Andy held his hands up defensively. “You know what,” he said, not pitching it as a question, “I’m not getting involved. Alex, meet me onstage when you’re, erm, done here, Andy and I want to go over something for the live task before you get changed.”
With that, he disappeared, leaving Alex and Greg still glaring daggers at each other. Alex relented first, sighing again and looking away. “Look, I don’t want us to fight about this all day,” he said. “We’ve only the New Years Treat recording to get through today, and then it’ll be months before we have to see each other.”
“And I’ll get over it by then, will I?” Greg asked.
“More banking on you forgetting about it, but—”
Despite himself, despite their argument, Greg snorted a laugh. “Yeah, fair play,” he agreed. “Though I don’t see why you won’t just confirm it.”
“I won’t confirm it because there’s nothing to confirm,” Alex said, starting towards the stage door with Greg trailing after him. “I don’t know where Jack seems to think he heard it from, but the only one with any say over who the Taskmaster was going to be was me, and you weren’t just the top of my list, you were the only person on it. You just can’t seem to accept that, for whatever reason.”
“Jack heard it from some exec at Dave,” Greg said, in the tone of one who had already told Alex this and was even more irritated than before at having to repeat it. “And he couldn’t wait to tell me, seeing as how he was on the fucking list. Which would make sense, seeing as how he was one of your ‘comedy heroes’.”
The air inverted commas dripped with sarcasm, and Alex again rolled his eyes as he pushed the stage door open, holding it so Greg could brush past him. “Jack Dee might be one of my comedy heroes but that doesn’t mean I wanted him to be Taskmaster. Now, if Ken Dodd had been up for it…”
“Ha, ha,” Greg said dryly, stalking out onto the stage with Alex trailing after him. “I didn’t say you wanted him to be Taskmaster, I said the studio did.”
“And I’ve told you, it doesn’t matter what the studio wanted—”
All of a sudden, there was a horrible shriek of metal against metal, and both Alex and Greg looked up simultaneously, just in time to see a lighting truss fall from the rafters. “Shit,” Greg had just enough time to say before Alex practically tackled him, both of them tumbling over the edge of the stage and onto the floor below as the truss crashed directly on top of where they both had just been standing.
“Ow,” Greg said, blinking up at the ceiling, and Alex groaned in agreement, wincing as he sat up.
“Are you all right?” he asked, his tone turning urgent as he gave Greg a once over, scrambling to his feet and offering him his hand.
But Greg just brushed it aside as he heaved himself up, grumbling incoherently to himself as he did. “I’m fucking fine,” he grunted once he finally got to his feet. “Bruised ego, but nothing new there, is it.”
Alex looked exasperated but before he could say anything, a young woman, probably a new production runner judging by the eager look on her face, appeared over his shoulder. “Mr Horne?” she asked, and Greg pulled a face.
“Well, don’t let me keep you, ‘Mr Horne’,” he said sourly. “Come find me when you’re done with your meeting, if you can pull yourself away.”
With that, he stalked off in the direction of the dressing rooms. Alex watched him go before turning back to the runner with a sigh. “Right,” he said. “Only I thought I was meeting them here—”
“No, I’m meant to take you to them,” she said brightly. “If you’ll just follow me…” Alex shrugged but nonetheless did so, following her back the way he’d come in. “Anything I can get you?” she asked over her shoulder. “Water, coffee, tea, something stronger?”
Alex raised both eyebrows at that. “No, I don’t think that’d be a good idea ahead of the recording,” he said mildly. “Also, sorry, but why aren’t we going to my dressing room if I’m not meeting them onstage?”
The runner stopped so suddenly that Alex almost walked into her. “I didn’t– are you meant to have a dressing room?” she asked, her eyes wide. “Only we didn’t– I mean, erm, we can get one ready for you, of course, it won’t be a problem, I’ll just need to—”
“It’s fine,” Alex said quickly, mainly to head off the inevitable freak out he could see coming, even though he was equally confused why he wouldn’t have his usual dressing room. “Where are we going, then?”
She relaxed, just slightly, and started walking again, a little faster than before. “Production offices,” she told him. “To meet with the producers.” Alex jerked a nod but before he could ask any follow up questions, she half-turned without breaking her stride to ask him, in a hopeful sort of way, “May I ask you something?”
He blinked. “Technically, you just did,” he said, on instinct alone, and recoiled slightly when she burst out laughing.
“That’s very funny, Mr Horne,” she said in a sort of strangely sycophantic way that made Alex uncomfortable. “May I ask you a different question, then?”
“Yeah, all right.”
Her smile faded, just slightly, into something more earnest. “Why do you think Taskmaster succeeded in America when it failed here?”
Alex frowned. “Pardon?”
“Oh, I mean, erm, not that it was a failure,” she hastened to add, as if Alex was insulted rather than just confused. “Three series is still a good amount! But you’ve now done, what, almost 10 series in the States? Or, erm, seasons they call them, don’t they?”
Alex shook his head slowly. “I don’t—” he started, but before he could ask just what she was on about, they arrived at the production offices, and the runner stopped and smiled up at him.
“Well, this is you,” she said unnecessarily. “I hope they do justice to your original concept.”
Still confused, Alex forced a smile and gave her a nod before stepping inside the office, beginning to feel like something wasn’t quite right.
Alex? Greg? Alex, can you hear me? Someone phone 999—
Greg knew he was being ridiculous.
That was the worst part of it, honestly, knowing he was being stupid and yet being entirely unable to stop himself. It wasn’t that he really doubted that Alex had wanted him to be the Taskmaster, because after all this time, after everything they’d been through, he’d’ve figured the truth out eventually.
But it still smarted to have Jack bloody Dee sidle up to him at the Groucho Club last week and tell him, with that sort of dour smirk he’d used during his series of Taskmaster whenever Alex got flustered, that he’d just been talking about Greg, and Taskmaster, and from there he’d only been too eager to tell Greg that he wasn’t the first choice.
If the studio had other names in mind, if they’d passed that list on to Alex, if he’d even so much as read it, considered those names against Greg– If Alex had settled for Greg instead any of the big names the studio undoubtedly had wanted—
Well, it didn’t really matter.
Except that it did. Because it had always meant so much to Greg that Alex had wanted only him.
Not like that.
Well, not not like that, necessarily, which was probably why Greg was having such a hard time letting this go.
God, he really was ridiculous.
He ran a hand across his mouth before forcing a smile and nodding at a passing crew member, someone he didn’t recognise, and he wondered when it had happened that he stopped recognising all the crew. Theirs was a relatively close-knit team, and while Greg obviously would never be on quite as good terms with them as Alex, because Alex was just that nice and Greg was, after all, a prick, he did at least try to remember faces, even if names were never going to stick with him.
Alex really was nice, and that thought just made Greg feel guilty as he brushed past more production staff he didn’t recognise. He shouldn’t have picked a fight, or overreacted, and he didn’t even check to make sure that Alex was all right after their fall off the stage.
Of course, it would probably serve the idiot right if he got a concussion, but—
He heaved a sigh when he got to his dressing room, wrenching the door open. But before he could even set foot inside, he was greeted by a particularly high-pitched shriek, and he hurriedly slammed the door. “Sorry,” he called panickedly through the closed door, even though he wasn’t entirely sure why he should be apologising because someone else was in his dressing room.
In fact– Greg froze, his hand still on the door handle, finally coming to his senses enough to ask the obvious question, such as it was: why the fuck was Jimmy fucking Carr in his dressing room?
—Not responding– both are breathing, at least, but they’ve been unconscious since the fall—
If Alex had been confused going into the meeting with the producers, now he was downright baffled. He’d been greeted by the usual producers from Avalon, but Andy Cartwright and Andy Devonshire had been nowhere to be seen, and to make matters worse, it quickly became clear that they weren’t filming the New Year’s Treat that day.
Instead, they were apparently filming some kind of special ‘8 Out of 10 Cats Does Taskmaster’ for Stand Up to Cancer.
Which Alex was fine with, in theory, and always happy to volunteer the show for charity purposes when he could, but the way they’d approached the idea was what had cemented Alex’s bafflement. “It only ever was a cult thing here, I know,” Jon had said, “nothing like the smash it became stateside, but who knows, this might breathe some fresh life into it.”
“Right,” Alex had said blankly, because he suspected asking what any of them were on about wasn’t going to get the reaction he hoped for. Especially when they pulled out some old production stills from the early series when the show was still on Dave, ones they claimed they’d been using as references to recreate the set, and while the photos looked overall familiar, Alex couldn’t help but notice one glaring omission.
And that there was someone who was distinctly not Greg seated on his right.
It was like Greg’s moaning from earlier brought to life, and it made absolutely no sense, had absolutely no root in anything resembling Alex’s reality, which really left only one plausible explanation: in falling off of the stage, he and Greg had somehow fallen into a parallel universe.
That was a completely mad thought of course, and Alex mostly blamed it on the fact that he’d fallen asleep the other night while watching Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse with his boys, but it also made a certain amount of sense. Or rather, it provided a certain amount of sense to what was otherwise an increasingly completely mad version of his world.
Either that or this was all a very elaborate prank that he’d find funny one day, though it certainly wasn’t going to be this day.
Of course, he thought to himself as he wandered rather aimlessly down the corridor, still trying to come to grips with what exactly was happening and how, if they were in a parallel universe, he couldn’t exactly just ask someone. Not without a very lengthy explanation that he had no real means of providing, and he suspected that if he tipped anyone on the production team off to any of this, he’d just be gently sent home where he wouldn’t be able to put any of this right.
He brightened at the thought of home. Of course, there was one person he could ask, one person who already knew he was mad and loved him anyway, and he grabbed his mobile from his pocket, dialling Rachel’s number from muscle memory alone.
“Alex?” Rachel said when he answered, sounding confused, which Alex supposed was to be expected, since he didn’t normally phone on recording days, and he had to assume that, parallel universe or not, the same probably held true here and now.
Still, Alex could’ve collapsed in relief at hearing her voice. “Rachel, thank God—”
But she cut him off, her tone strangely frosty. “What’s happened?” she asked. “Why are you phoning at this hour?”
Alex glanced automatically at his watch, trying to figure out what she meant. “What do you mean?”
“I mean,” she said, her tone still clipped and so different from her normal warm voice, “isn’t it like 3 in the morning your time?”
Alex blinked. “My time?”
“In L.A.”
The statement didn’t clear anything up for Alex, and he shook his head. “I’m not in L.A.,” he said. “I’m in London.”
“Oh.” Rachel sounded distinctly unamused by that. “Well, I hope you weren’t planning on seeing your children. We’ve been through this before, you don’t get to just pop in and out of their lives when it’s convenient for you, and the child arrangements order—”
Alex’s heart skipped a beat in his chest. “The what?” he asked, a little desperately, hoping against hope that he might’ve misheard.
“The child arrangements order,” Rachel repeated. “That we had put in place after the divorce.”
If Greg being passed over as Taskmaster was his nightmare brought to life in this universe, this was Alex’s, and he closed his eyes. “Right,” he said hollowly. “The divorce. From– from when I went to America.”
He managed not to pitch it like a question, and luckily, Rachel confirmed it for him anyway. “From when you moved continents and left me to raise our three children on my own, yeah,” she said coolly. “I realise that as a big shot telly producer in America, signing the paperwork was probably just another Tuesday for you, but you can’t tell me that you’ve actually forgotten that we got divorced.”
Alex swallowed and shook his head, even though she couldn’t see him. “No,” he lied, “of course not.”
“Good, because it was hell going through it the first time around, and I’d rather not relive it.” Alex winced but thankfully, she didn’t wait for him to respond, instead just asking, “Now, was there something you actually wanted?”
There were so many things that Alex wanted, but he doubted she’d be able to give them to him. “No,” he said instead, before adding, because he had to, no matter what else was happening in this universe, “Just– just give the boys my love.”
“Fine,” she said shortly. “Goodbye, Alex.”
Again, she didn’t wait for his reply before ringing off, and Alex slumped against the wall, staring down at his phone with only one desperate thought racing through his head: how the hell was he supposed to fix this?
—I came as soon as I could. Is there any change? Alex, it’s me, it’s Rach, I’m here, I’ve got you—
Greg was going mad. There was no other explanation for it. No one on the production crew seemed to know who he was, let alone why he was there, and he was fairly certain they were about five minutes away from ringing the police to come cart him off to some room with padded walls.
Either that, or this was a practical joke that everyone in on were more committed to than Alex fucking Horne, and that was saying something, since that man’s commitment to the bit was usually unrivalled.
Speaking of Alex, as Greg rounded a corner, he saw the man slumped against the wall, and despite himself, despite the madness, Greg’s heart leapt in his chest. “Alex,” he gasped, rather pathetically, all things considered. “Alex, oh thank fuck.”
He grabbed him and pulled him into a hug, not caring that Alex would undoubtedly protest like usual. For at least a moment, holding Alex in his arms, warm and sturdy, Greg felt like he was grounded in reality again.
At least, until Alex tightened his grip on him, burrowing against him like he might never let go, and Greg’s concern for his own seemingly tenuous grip on reality was immediately replaced by concern for the man in front of him. “Hey,” he said softly, “you all right, mate?”
Alex shook his head without pulling away, and Greg sighed heavily, resting his chin on top of Alex’s head. “Yeah,” he muttered. “Yeah, I know what you mean. The world’s gone fucking sideways, and no one seems to have any clue what’s going on.”
Alex let out a noise that might have been a laugh, or a sob, or quite possibly a combination of both, and when he pulled back, Greg was surprised to see his eyes were suspiciously red. “You have no idea,” he said hoarsely.
“I think I do,” Greg said. “No one seems to know who I am, and I realise I’ve a big ego but you can’t tell me that not a single person who works on this show knows who the fucking Taskmaster is. Or maybe, I dunno, maybe I hit my head when we fell and this is all a hallucination that will disappear when I wake up from whatever dogshit coma I happen to be in.”
“I think you may be on to something there,” Alex muttered, tugging the cuffs on his jumper down over his hands like he did when he was worried. “Only I think it’s worse than a hallucination.”
“What could possibly be worse than a hallucination?”
Alex jerked a shrug. “You’re going to think it’s stupid. Or mad. Or a bit of both.” He didn’t wait for Greg to either agree or refute him, instead taking a deep breath before telling him, “I think we’re in a parallel universe.”
Greg’s immediate reaction was to laugh, because– well, because parallel universes were something that happened in bad sci-fi novels, not real life. “That’s not possible—” he started before breaking off, staring at Alex in horror as he saw something he hadn’t noticed before, something that made him think that a parallel universe was in fact the only possible explanation.
“What?” Alex asked, frowning.
“Christ, I think you’re right about the parallel universe,” Greg said, still horrified, and Alex’s frown deepened, something almost suspicious in his expression.
“What makes you believe me all of a sudden?"
Greg shook his head slowly. “You– your teeth,” he managed, a little faintly.
Alex blinked up at him, confusion clear in his expression. “What about my teeth?” he asked, though he didn’t wait for Greg to respond, just grabbing his phone out of his pocket and holding it up in front of his face. His suddenly very wrinkle-free face. “Oh my God. Oh my God.”
He lowered his phone, looking as horrified as Greg, the expression just going to emphasise what Greg had noticed: the gap between Alex’s front teeth was gone. And while Greg had joked about him getting Botox, he was pretty sure that Alex actually had, at least in this universe. And– had he had a hair transplant?
“What the bloody hell’s happened to us?” he demanded.
Alex shook his head slowly, his expression distant. “I think– I think we’re in a universe where the studio made me pick someone else to be Taskmaster,” he said slowly.
Despite the circumstances, Greg felt at least a moment of triumph. “So you admit the studio did want someone else!”
Alex gave him a look. “Is that really important right now?” he asked.
“Well, it is to me,” Greg muttered.
Alex huffed a sigh and scrubbed both hands across his face. “Whatever the impetus was,” he said in a determined sort of way, “it appears that in this universe, Taskmaster wasn’t a success in the UK. But for whatever reason, it was a hit in the US, so I moved over there with the show, and—”
“Does that mean your boys have American accents in this universe?” Greg asked, fascinated despite himself.
“I’d assume not,” Alex muttered, “since it seems they live full-time with Rachel.”
Greg frowned. “But why wouldn’t she…” He trailed off, realisation hitting. “No. Surely not.” Alex just shrugged, not quite meeting his eyes, and it took everything in Greg not to pull him into another hug. “Fucking hell, mate, I can handle not being Taskmaster, but I can’t handle the two of you breaking up.”
Alex glanced up at him, a small smile twitching at the corners of his mouth. “You cannot handle not being Taskmaster.”
“Well, no, but comparatively I probably should be able to,” Greg said, and was rewarded with an actual laugh from Alex, the breathy honk warming him far more than it probably should. “So what do we do?” he asked. “How do we get back to our universe, assuming you do want to get back?”
“Of course I do,” Alex said impatiently, his preternaturally smooth brow furrowed like it did when he was trying to think of the perfect joke to make. “And really the only thing that I think to do is fix the show and hope that fixes everything.”
“Fix the show?”
Alex nodded. “Do our version of it,” he said. “Exactly as it’s supposed to be.”
“Ok,” Greg said slowly, “but how?”
Alex shrugged. “It’s a one off version they’re recording today,” he told Greg, “meaning we don’t have to worry about series continuity at least. I won’t be in any of the filmed tasks, of course, but we can explain that away. I’ll phone the Andys, see if I can convince them to get over here, and—”
“Mate, we’ve been replaced,” Greg interrupted flatly, feeling like Alex wasn’t quite grasping the situation. “Jimmy Carr is the Taskmaster of this version.” Alex pulled a face and Greg nodded in agreement. “It sounds like you’re probably a big enough deal to talk your way into going on as the assistant, but I doubt even you can get Carr replaced.”
Alex looked crestfallen for a moment before he suddenly, and suspiciously, brightened. “What if I said I had an idea?”
Greg eyed him warily. “That sounds dangerous.”
“It very well may be,” Alex agreed. “But are you with me?”
Greg didn’t hesitate for even a second. “Always.”
—said to give them time but how much time? Why haven’t they woken up yet if there’s nothing seriously wrong with them?
For as much as was clearly wrong in the parallel universe, the one nice thing was that the studio building hadn’t changed. And its many eccentricities seemed the same, caused as they had been by decades of high profile idiots making their way through the various dressing rooms, sound stages, and green rooms, even if in this universe, Alex and Greg hadn’t been among them.
And that meant Alex had at least one trick up his sleeve to exploit.
Greg managed to talk Jimmy Carr into changing dressing room, since clearly the lock on the door of his was broken, and as soon as Jimmy was in what had been Alex’s dressing room in their universe, it was just a matter of jiggling the handle exactly right so that the door lock jammed as it had done to Alex on more than one occasion. But where Alex knew who to call on the maintenance staff to come let him out, he was rather banking on Jimmy not having the same connections on speed dial in his mobile.
That at least would, if there was at least a little bit of justice in this bizarre alternate reality, buy them enough time for step 2 of the plan, which involved Alex sweet talking Susie Dent out of her assistant role for the recording.
She was a much easier sell, at least. “Honestly, I wasn’t much looking forward to it,” she told him as he walked her to the green room. “Filming the tasks was one thing, and I still appreciate your help with letting us use tasks from your version in the States. But I much prefer being an objective adjudicator, and this role calls for a bit more mischief than my role in Dictionary Corner.”
“You have no idea,” Alex told her before bidding her goodbye with a promise that he’d try to swing by Cats Does Countdown at some point where he was in town.
From there, it was just a matter of convincing Andy C to come to the studio and Andy D to Facetime in from the States to run the show, and then the only thing that was left was for Greg and Alex to get changed in Greg’s dressing room.
But as they pulled on the closest versions of their costumes they could wrangle from storage, Greg hesitated, and Alex glanced at him. “Problem?” he asked. “I know it probably doesn’t fit right—”
“No, it’s not that,” Greg said. “It’s– you don’t have to do this, you know.”
Alex frowned, straightening the lapels of his suit jacket. “What are you talking about?”
“I mean…” Greg trailed off and shrugged, not meeting Alex’s eyes. “I realise this universe would take some getting used to, but you’ve got more money and fame and behind the scenes power than you could ever want here. And seemingly all because I wasn’t Taskmaster.” He shrugged again, a painfully forced casualness to the gesture. “Clearly I’m what’s been holding you back, and if that’s the case—”
“Don’t be daft,” Alex started, but Greg just shook his head.
“Maybe it is daft,” he said, “but then again, maybe so was picking me in the first place.” Alex opened his mouth to interrupt but Greg didn’t let him. “Just think about it, yeah? Not too late for us to not do this, if that’s what you decide you want.”
Before Alex could properly articulate just how mad that was, Greg muttered something about getting his makeup done and slipped out of the room, leaving Alex alone and more confused than ever.
Not over what he should do – that answer was as plain as how abhorrently wrong Alex’s face looked with Botox – but over why Greg would even think that Alex would want to consider staying in this universe.
And just how Alex was going to convince him that he wanted nothing less.
There was only one person that Alex ever called on when he needed advice on how to talk about feelings, and even though everything had clearly gone to hell, there was still only one person he could talk to, one person he hoped could help him make sense of it all.
So he sat down heavily on the sofa in the dressing room, and even though he knew it was likely a mistake, he dialled Rachel again.
“What now?” she asked sharply when she picked up, and Alex winced.
“I realise you don’t really want to speak with me right now—”
“Not particularly, no,” Rachel said, and Alex huffed a sigh, rubbing his eyes with his free hand.
“Right.”
Rachel sighed heavily, though her tone was at least slightly gentler when she asked, “Why are you phoning me, Alex?”
There was nothing Alex could tell her but the truth. “Because you’re still my favourite person in the world,” he said honestly. “Because everything’s gone wrong and I haven’t the first clue if I can even fix it, and if anyone can help me, it’s you.”
“Oh, Alex,” Rachel said quietly. “What’ve you gotten yourself into?”
Alex glanced up at the clock on the wall. “It’s sort of a long story,” he hedged. “But I’m fairly certain it started with our divorce. And I know I definitely haven’t the time to fix that, especially since I assume it would take quitting my job and moving back to the UK as a start—”
“It really wouldn’t,” Rachel said flatly.
Alex frowned. “That wouldn’t help?”
“It might help,” Rachel allowed, “but we didn’t get divorced because you moved to America. We didn’t get divorced because of your job. Those were both symptoms, for lack of a better term, but if that’s what you’re trying to fix, it won’t solve anything.”
“Why not?”
Rachel sighed again. “Because…” She trailed off, something wistful in her tone. “Because you were so unhappy. That’s why we got divorced. Because you’re my favourite person, too, and I couldn’t stand to see you like that. We used to have so much fun – our life used to be so much fun, and then—”
She broke off, and Alex swallowed, hard. “Then what?”
“It’s like you lost your spark,” she told him. “Like you lost your joy. Like nothing could make you laugh anymore. And as much as it broke my heart, it would’ve broken something far worse to stay and watch you like that.”
Alex knew in an instant what it was, what had been missing in this universe. The one thing that had been altered in this universe was the one thing, it seemed, that had kept everything together in theirs, that had given Alex everything he needed to love the life he had.
And he knew what he needed to tell Greg.
“I love you,” he said, because it was true, too, here and in every universe.
She managed a short, surprised laugh. “This really wasn’t how I saw my day going,” she said.
“Me neither,” Alex said. “I’ll– well, I don’t know if I’ll talk to you later, to be honest, but I have to try to fix this the only way I can. And if I’m right—”
“You are,” Rachel interrupted. “I know you are. And Alex?”
“Yeah?”
“I love you, too.”
She rang off, and Alex grinned for the first time since he’d fallen off the stage with Greg.
He knew what he had to say to Greg.
—whenever you’re ready. Come back to me. Come back—
Alex took his place next to Greg backstage, nudging him gently with his shoulder like he’d done a thousand times before. Greg glanced down at him, his expression soft even in the harsh red light. “Are you sure about this?” he asked, one last time.
“Yes,” Alex said firmly. “Without question. Because I love my life. I love my wife, and my kids, and this show, and– and I love you.” He felt himself flush and was grateful Greg wouldn’t be able to tell. “You’ve made my life more complete than I ever thought it could be, and I wouldn’t trade that for all the money and fame and power in the world.” Greg looked like he wanted to interrupt, but Alex didn’t let him. “I don’t know if the studio had a list of names. I wasn’t lying about that. If they did, I never once saw it. But it doesn’t matter if the studio had wanted any of my comedy heroes to be Taskmaster, because I made my choice ten years ago, and it was the best choice I ever made.”
Greg grinned. “Even if Ken Dodd had been an option?”
“Even then,” Alex said firmly. “You are the only person I have ever wanted to do this with. I guarantee that the reason why the American version actually worked in this universe is because without you, I would never have known what it felt like to do something like this with the person you’re meant to do it with. And now we have a chance to do it again, together. The way we were always meant to.”
“Well,” Greg said after a moment, his voice strangely husky, “I suppose you’ve convinced me.”
Alex huffed a laugh. “Is that all you have to say?” he asked, a little wryly.
In answer, Greg leaned in and kissed him.
In many ways, the simple gesture said more than words ever could. Or maybe it was just that they perfectly understood each other once more.
Either way, it was hard to tell which of them was grinning more when they broke apart after a particularly pointed cough from Andy C in their ear pieces. “Ready for this, baby cakes?” Greg asked.
“Yes, Greg,” Alex answered, meaning it more than ever.
But before he could step out onto the stage, Greg caught his hand. “Oh, and Alex?”
Alex glanced back at him. “Yeah?”
“I love you, too.”
Needless to say, they were both grinning when they walked out onstage.
Given the several last minute changes needed to pull this off, Greg and Alex hadn’t done their usual pre-show crowd warm up, but Alex knew they’d be all right without it, just this once. So when the compère announced them, they both headed straight to their thrones, waving to the audience as they did.
The applause was rather more lacklustre than they’d become accustomed to, but Alex couldn’t find it in himself to mind as he grabbed his iPad before sitting down, crossing one leg over the other. They’d win them over, he had no doubt about that.
Greg’s grin sharpened into his usual smirk as the floor director counted him in. “I’m Greg Davies,” he said to the camera, ignoring the autocue, “and in this universe, and every universe, I am the Taskmaster. Five comedians have come to prostrate themselves before my majesty in hopes that I reward their efforts with points and a truly rubbish trophy. They are—”
He announced them with his usual panache before his smirk widened, and Alex ducked his head to hide his own smile. “And seated next to me right where he belongs in this and every universe, a hairy giblet of a man, it’s– Little Alex Hooooorne!”
Weirdly, considering how lukewarm the initial applause had been, the applause and cheers at that was overwhelmingly loud, and Alex screwed his face up against it, suddenly feeling much too warm under the stage lights, his mouth feeling like it was full of cotton, and—
He blinked his eyes open, and Rachel’s face swam into view above him. “Hey, sleeping beauty,” she teased, though there was genuine relief in her voice. “Glad you’ve finally decided to join us, even if Greg’s been joking that you were much better when you were out.”
Alex swallowed and wet his lips. “Greg?” he managed, turning his head, and in the hospital bed next to his, Greg gave him a small, wan smile.
“Hello, mate,” Greg said, and Alex managed a somewhat shaky smile of his own.
“Hi.”
He looked back at Rachel, something of his unspoken question clearly in his expression since she smoothed a hand through his hair before telling him, “You and Greg were knocked unconscious by a bit of lighting rig that fell. They brought you to A&E. He just woke up as well. But you’re gonna be okay, I promise.”
“I know,” Alex said, even if he wasn’t entirely sure how he knew.
He just knew that everything felt like it was right in the world once more.
Rachel kissed his forehead before standing. “I’m going to go get the doctor,” she told them. “I’ll be right back.”
She disappeared and Alex looked back at Greg, who held his hand out into the empty space between their beds. Without hesitating, Alex reached out as well and took it, and Greg squeezed his hand. “I’m glad you chose me,” Greg told him, his voice scratchy, and Alex nodded.
“Me too.” He winced as his head throbbed, and he frowned slightly at Greg. “What brought that on?”
“Dunno,” Greg said after a long moment, his gaze briefly unfocused. “I think I had a dream, and you were there.”
Alex nodded slowly. “Yeah,” he said. “I think you were in my dream, too.”
Greg glanced at him, his expression soft. “We should talk—” he started, but at that moment, an entire fleet of doctors and nurses bustled in to examine them, and Greg just managed to squeeze his hand once more before he was forced to let go.
Alex missed the warmth, but he knew it was only temporary. Just like he knew, even though he didn’t know how he knew, what Greg wanted to say to him.
There’d be time. They still had time.
After all, they’d work it all out together.
They always had.
In this, and every universe.