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“It was a good interview,” Alex offered as he slid into the backseat of the car next to Greg, who was tucking his vape back into his pocket with the sort of reluctance of a man who would have to wait all of twenty minutes to take his next hit.
“Hm?” Greg said, somewhat non-committally.
“The interview we just finished,” Alex said with a practiced patience, since it was thoroughly possible that Greg had literally forgotten about it between them wrapping up in the podcast recording studio and getting to the car.
Greg gave him a look. “I realise you think I’m thick—” he started.
“Only in your waist size,” Alex assured him.
Despite his attempt at a glare, the corners of Greg’s mouth twitched towards a smile he was clearly trying very hard not to let slip. “I should smack you for that, but I can’t be arsed,” he said with a sigh. “Anyway, yes, I remember the interview. I just meant, good in what way?”
“Different questions,” Alex said. “Deep questions, really. Or, at least, deeper than, ‘what’s been your favourite task’ and such.”
Greg nodded slowly. “Really sort of getting into the meat of the comedy,” he agreed. “What makes the show work and all that.” He glanced at Alex, now allowing himself an actual smile. “Too bad that our answers are mostly ‘we don’t really think that hard about it’.”
“You don’t think that hard about it,” Alex corrected. “But then, you’re much more naturally funny than I am.”
Greg cocked his head, just slightly. “Bit of whiplash going from you thinking I’m an idiot to thinking I’m naturally funny.”
Alex raised both eyebrows. “Technically they’re not mutually exclusive.”
“Fair enough, yeah,” Greg agreed, tipping his head back against the head rest. “And good thing, too, since you’re clearly an idiot if you think you’re not naturally funny.”
Alex wrinkled his nose, not entirely willing to go down this route, seeing as how it would likely lead to Greg complimenting him, and while some of Alex’s discomfort with Greg praising him was manufactured, especially when they were in an interview setting, the bulk of it was very real, and he’d rather not deal with that at the moment. “Agree to disagree, I think,” he said firmly, or at least as firmly as he ever did. He glanced up at Greg. “But there is some truth to a lot of it just sort of happening naturally.”
“I know,” Greg said comfortably, closing his eyes. “It’s part of what makes it great and all.”
He waved a dismissive hand, and Alex nodded slowly, watching Greg’s hand move lazily through the air. “But some of the scripted stuff is good too.”
Greg cracked one eye open. “Mate, are you planning on getting to your point sometime this century?” he asked. “Not that I’m not enjoying this meandering path around whatever it is you actually want to chat about, but then I always enjoy chatting with you.”
Sometimes, rarely, to be fair, but certainly sometimes, Alex thought that it was possible Greg knew him entirely too well. One of the perils of working together for as long as they had. “You’re going to think I’m strange for even bringing it up,” he started, setting it up perfectly for Greg to make the obvious joke.
Which he did, because Alex also knew Greg entirely too well. “I think you’re strange all the time, and that’s never once stopped you before.”
“Fair play,” Alex said good-naturedly, before he cleared his throat and, finally, got to the point. “Was the kiss really not scripted?”
Greg opened both eyes. “Sorry?” he asked, a little blankly.
“The kiss,” Alex repeated, though he was certain Greg had heard him. “I just– doesn’t really seem like something we’d do off the cuff.”
Greg looked down at him, his expression strangely unreadable, considering he normally wore every emotion that he felt, at least as far as Alex could tell. “Heading off any potential cracks about my memory, I certainly don’t remember us having a conversation about it, nor do I remember writing it, so if anyone scripted it, it’d’ve been you, which it doesn’t seem like you remember doing either,” he said after a long moment. “And obviously I wouldn’t remember what was on the autocue after this long, but I can’t imagine it was anything more than your twerpy lead-in followed by ‘Greg reacts’.”
Well, Alex supposed what Greg had done certainly counted as reacting.
Granted, Alex would wager that no one would have expected Greg’s reaction would be to, essentially, dare him to go through with it. Which Alex had, because he couldn’t turn down a dare, even if the words ‘I dare you to’ had come out as ‘Come on then’.
“What about in series 18?” Alex asked, because just as he was never one to pass up a dare, neither was he one to stop prodding a bruise.
Greg’s brow furrowed. “I need you to be more specific.”
Alex supposed he should have expected that. It didn’t get brought up nearly as much as their series 6 kiss, after all, and Greg’s memory had only gotten worse as the years went on. Still, he shifted uncomfortably as he told Greg with his trademark awkwardness never less of a joke as it was in that moment, “Oh, erm, in series 18, you, er, you also kissed me.”
“Yeah, I know,” Greg said, and Alex blinked in surprise. “I meant, which kiss? I kissed your forehead and I kissed you when trying to get you to say the word ‘cunt’.”
Another smile twitched at the corners of Greg’s mouth, and Alex tracked the minute movement with his eyes. “I– I wasn’t sure you remembered.”
Greg’s smile sharpened. “Bit hard to forget something like that.”
“Kissing me?” Alex asked, aiming for a joke and missing by a mile.
“Well, that too,” Greg said evenly. “But mostly getting one over on you. It’s so rare that I can genuinely surprise you the way that you always seem to surprise me.” Alex nodded slowly, but before he could even formulate some kind of response, Greg added, still in that casual way of his like they were discussing the weather or their upcoming holidays, “You surprised me with that first kiss.”
“Did I?” Alex asked, a little taken aback. “But it was you– I mean, it was unscripted, and you were the one…”
He trailed off, figuring he didn’t need to be the one to explain that in this instance, it had been Greg who had ‘yes, and’d them into that situation. Usually that was Alex’s job, but Greg had been the one to take Alex’s set up and instead of brushing it off or taking the piss out of Alex, both of which were practically de rigueur, especially in those earlier series, had run with it.
Despite him not finishing his thought, Greg nodded like he understood. “I was surprised you went through with it,” he told Alex. “Thought you might turn away at the last moment or crack some joke or something. But you didn’t.” His smile – his entire expression, really, if not his entire being – softened as he looked down at Alex, who was suddenly extremely cognisant of how close they were sitting in the back of the car. “And I think that was the moment I knew.”
Alex swallowed. “Knew what?”
“That you really would do anything for the show,” Greg said simply, the gentle tease in his words hitting like a blow. “Even kissing a fat old cunt like me.” He shrugged unconcernedly before adding, a little wryly, “And then of course Liza Tarbuck made you stick your bare bum in a cake and so much more exactingly proved it to the whole world a few days later.”
Despite himself, Alex laughed. “Mm, only one of those was really a hardship,” he told Greg, who snorted at yet another obvious set up.
“Yeah, and I know it was kissing me more than getting cake up your arsehole, you little freak,” he said affectionately, reaching out to pat Alex on the knee. “And that’s why we can never script a kiss, because it’s too awful for you to sit through, I know.”
Alex laughed again, somewhat weaker this time, though Greg didn’t seem to notice, instead pulling his phone out of his pocket, clearly deeming the conversation over. Which was fine with Alex – he wasn’t sure he had anything else worth saying on the subject.
Nothing truthful, at least.
It was strange, Alex thought, leaning his head against the cold glass of the car window as he stared out at the passing New York City buildings, how someone could tell a lie so many times that it became its own strange version of the truth.
He didn’t remember the first person who’d asked if the kiss had been scripted – one of the cast, probably, since the crew would’ve seen the autocue to know it wasn’t. He didn’t even really remember why he’d lied at the time. Maybe to avoid the inevitable explanation? Maybe because he was still leaning into his, ‘I have to do what Greg tells me’ bit?
Maybe because while he’d never faced any real life consequences from any of Greg’s intros, as he’d said in the interview, he suspected he would face real life consequences for admitting the truth.
The full truth – not the version of the truth that Greg almost certainly told, which was that it hadn’t been scripted but had been funny to lean into, figuratively and literally.
Alex’s version looked a little different.
Yes, it had been fun. It had been funny. It had been the natural culmination of what was to that point the funniest joke Alex had ever created with someone else.
But he hadn’t just kissed Greg for the joke.
In many ways, it was the moment Alex knew as well. Knew that Greg was more than just a co-host, or a colleague. Knew that he’d somehow stumbled into the perfect partnership with someone who instinctively knew how to perfectly parry his every comedic thrust, who knew his commitment to the bit was the funniest thing about Alex, and also instinctively knew how to exploit and encourage it. Alex knew from that moment that he’d somehow accidentally found everything he’d ever dreamed of, comedically.
And while he’d never really be able to remember whether he fully knew at the time, by the time Greg kissed him again in series 18, Alex definitely knew that he’d also found someone who was more than just a comedy partner, that he’d somehow found someone he wanted to spend the rest of his life with in whatever way he’d be allowed to.
Even if it meant sitting shoulder to shoulder in the back of a massive black SUV, the silence so thick it almost felt comforting, in a way, the weight of everything neither said as familiar as the blanket he and Rachel kept on the back of the sofa.
At this point, what Alex didn’t say was far more the joke than what they said was, no matter how far both of them pushed the boundaries of this relationship, however it was defined.
Which is what made the silence so comfortable that Alex knew he’d never be the one to break it, in the end.
Because this was the joke. And, as had been well-documented throughout the course of this relationship, Alex would do anything for the joke.