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A knock sounded on Alex’s dressing room door and he blinked up from his phone to turn, panicked, from the clock on his phone to the one on the wall as if one or both of them might be lying. “What is it?” he called.
Andy D. poked his head in. “You all right?” he asked, sounding amused.
“Fine,” Alex said, scrubbing a hand across his face before looking pointedly back at the clock. “We’ve got over an hour until call time.”
If anything, Andy just looked even more amused by that. “Yeah, and the Powers That Be want you to use this hour productively,” he said. “Mainly by finally recording your voiceover bits for Taskmasterclass.”
Alex groaned. “I forgot about that,” he sighed.
“I figured,” Andy said. “But thankfully, I know for a fact you’ve not got anything for the next half hour, so you can go get it done now. Avalon booked a sound booth just for you.”
Alex sighed again and gave Andy a plaintive look. “Must I?” he asked, even as he was already standing. “Greg did his bits already?”
Andy nodded. “Per your request, yes,” he said, holding the door open for him.
Alex pulled a face at the way that sounded but didn’t comment on it. It just made practical sense for Greg to record his lines first – he was the actor, after all, and better able to react to empty air, whereas Alex needed something to actually react to if he had any hope of it not sounding more fake than it probably already would.
This type of work was not his strong suit by any stretch of the imagination. But Channel 4 had commissioned it, and given how little work was involved on his end, or on Greg’s, it was a no-brainer.
And now he just had to get through the next half hour.
He followed Andy to the appointed recording studio, where he was met by one of their sound engineers. “All right, then?” the engineer asked, shaking his hand, and thankfully, he didn’t wait for an answer. “You’ll be in there, script’s already printed for you. You’ll get Greg’s lines through the headset and then just speak like normal. We can clean a lot up in post, so don’t worry too much about enunciating or the like.”
“Thanks,” Alex said, not bothering to remind him that this was hardly his first foray into vocal recording.
He stepped into the sound booth and put the provided headset on, clearing his throat a few times and glancing down at the script. Ordinarily, he might’ve wanted to run through it at least once, but since he’d written it, he was fairly certain he remembered enough of it to be fine.
He gave a thumbs up to the engineer and almost immediately was treated to Greg’s voice in his ear, a familiar enough sound that he relaxed almost despite himself. “Ah, welcome to the first episode of Taskmasterclass. I’m the Taskmaster, Greg Davies.”
“And I’m the Taskmaster’s Assistant, Alex Horne,” Alex said into the microphone, “and I’d just like to say—”
“Shut up,” Greg’s voice barked in his headset.
Some things never changed.
The first few minutes of the recording were mostly uneventful. Alex had to do a couple takes when his words got garbled but nothing terrible.
At least, until he got to the bit about Greg being mean to him.
It was a riff on the same pat answer they gave seemingly every time they did an interview about how Greg was horrible to him, etcetera, but there was one bit that Alex had forgotten about entirely, and the breath caught in his throat as he heard Greg say, his voice low in his ear, “I’m mean because I love you and I want you to be stronger.”
For some reason, the simple statement, delivered by Greg as if it was a complete non-event, just a casual sentiment dropped into conversation, stopped Alex in his tracks.
Well, not really for some reason. He knew very well why, and half-wondered in that moment if he’d written it deliberately, just to hear Greg say what he’d spent years now wanting to hear.
Alex wasn’t typically that manipulative, but it certainly made more sense than any other explanation. Of course, it didn’t fully explain his reaction to hearing Greg say the words Alex had written for him, but—
“Everything all right?” the engineer asked through Alex’s headset, and Alex shook his head.
“Sorry, yeah,” he said quickly. “Can we just, er, take that moment back?”
“Sure, no problem,” the engineer said, and Alex closed his eyes as Greg’s line was replayed.
His reaction this time was to simply blurt his next line with absolutely no emotion, which was about as good as he could hope for considering that his chest tightened as if it was being squeezed by a vice.
Because even if the line was everything he’d wanted to hear, it wasn’t remotely said the way he’d wanted to hear it.
He finished recording the rest of his lines in a sort of daze, almost certainly not delivering anything resembling his best work, and when he’d finished, he asked the sound engineer through his headset, “Do you know how long we’ve booked the sound booth for?”
The engineer looked surprised. “You did fine, so if you’re thinking of re-recording—”
Alex shook his head. “No, just may need Greg to re-record a line,” he said.
The engineer glanced at his watch. “Well, we’ve got about twenty minutes left, so if you hurry…”
He trailed off and Alex jerked a nod. “Thanks,” he muttered, rubbing his hands on his trousers before hurrying from the booth, tracing the familiar path back to their dressing rooms, and more specifically, to Greg’s.
He knocked briskly on the door, and as soon as Greg called for him to come in, he poked his head in. “Can you re-record some of your voiceover for Taskmasterclass?” he asked with no preamble.
Which almost certainly explained why Greg blinked up at him like he’d lost his mind. “For what now?” he asked mildly, setting his phone down.
“That clip show that Channel 4 commissioned?” Alex prompted, giving Greg a look when he just stared blankly at him. “I know you know what I’m talking about.”
If anything, Greg just looked amused at his impatience. “Mate, I hate to be the one to tell you this, but I barely pay a fraction of the amount of attention you do to our various Taskmaster-related appearances and the like.”
Alex scowled. “Yes, but I do rather suspect that you’d remember going into a sound booth and recording a bit of voiceover work as the Taskmaster,” he pointed out, stepping fully into Greg’s dressing room and closing the door behind him.
Greg sat back in his chair. “It’s jogging a vague memory,” he acknowledged, still looking amused. “So what’s the issue? Assumedly no one had a problem with it when I recorded it originally?”
Somehow, it hadn’t occurred to Alex that Greg might want to know why he was being asked to re-record something, and he winced. “No,” he admitted, “I’m the one with the issue.”
A smirk twitched at the corners of Greg’s mouth. “You have got issues, mate, no argument from me there.”
“Hilarious,” Alex said dryly, and Greg’s grin widened.
“I like to think so, at least,” he said, just this side of smug in a way that only he could get away with. “So what was the issue?”
He looked at Alex expectantly, and Alex cleared his throat. “There’s a bit that I don’t think fits the in-universe character,” he said, for lack of a better explanation, “and I’d like you to redo it.”
Greg’s brow furrowed. “What bit?”
“Does it matter?” Alex asked.
Greg frowned. “It does if I’m being accused of not being in character,” he said. “I am an actor, you know. I take pride in not being complete shit most of the time.”
Alex rolled his eyes, too impatient to stroke Greg’s ego the way he normally would. “I just think—” he started, but Greg cut him off, leaning forward.
“Hang on, did I write my lines for the voiceover script?”
“No,” Alex said, “but—”
Again Greg interrupted him. “Which means you did, you little control freak.” He said it fondly but Alex still ground his teeth together. “So you think my delivery of something you wrote is out of character?”
Alex huffed a sigh. “I didn’t say—”
“Or did you just happen to realise as you were listening to it back that what you wrote was shit?” Greg asked, almost saccharine sweet.
Normally, Alex would have joked right back at him, but he wasn’t in the mood. “I never said it was shit,” he said instead. “But hearing it aloud made me realise it wasn’t quite the right tone, and I’d like you to have another go at it.”
He said it in his most calm and commanding showrunner voice, which usually had Greg rolling his eyes as he acquiesced to whatever the request was, usually to redo a line he hadn’t quite gotten right. But this time, Greg seemed impervious to it, just holding his hand out expectantly. “Give the script.”
Alex stared at him. “What?”
“Give me the fucking script,” Greg repeated, and Alex scowled again.
“I haven’t got it on me—”
“You’ve got a PDF in your email,” Greg said, which while undoubtedly true, just caused Alex’s scowl to deepen. “Go on, then, hand it over.”
Alex gritted his teeth but pulled his phone from his pocket and found the final version of the script in his email, right where Greg had said it would be. “Here,” he said gruffly, thrusting his phone out to Greg, who plucked it out of his hand, scanning through the PDF quickly.
Thankfully, there wasn’t much to it, and all too soon, Greg passed his phone back to him, his brow furrowed again. “This all looks bog standard to me,” he said. “How could I possibly have fucked that up?”
“Like I said,” Alex said, the bite of impatience back in his tone despite his best efforts, “there was just one line—”
“Which line?” Greg asked.
Despite himself and every instinct that told him he should’ve just dropped this five minutes ago, or better yet, never mentioned it at all, Alex scrolled to the line in question and held his phone up for Greg. “This one.”
Greg squinted at it before glancing up at Alex. “How did I say it?” he asked, clearly confused, and Alex sighed.
“Matter-of-factly,” he said after a moment, and if Greg was confused before, it was nothing compared to now.
“What the fuck does that even mean?” he asked, on the verge of baffled.
“It means– Look, our personas– I’ve, I mean, as the Assistant, as Little Alex Horne, I’ve told you that I love you.” Alex could tell that he was flushing, could feel his ears burn but couldn’t seem to look away. “On the show.”
Greg’s expression didn’t so much as flicker. “Yeah.”
Alex cleared his throat. “You, as the Taskmaster, have never reciprocated that.”
“Okay…” Greg said slowly, as if waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Alex jerked a shrug, crossing his arms in front of his chest, almost wishing he had his iPad just to give his hands something to do. “And here you are,” he said. “And I just think, if you’re going to say it, it can’t be like this.”
Greg sat back again, crossing his arms to almost mirror Alex’s pose. “How would you like me to say the line, then?” he asked, and Alex shook his head.
“I wouldn’t,” he said, feeling on firmer ground, some of his authority returning to his voice. “I think I need to rewrite it and get rid of it altogether.”
Something unreadable flashed across Greg’s expression, so quickly Alex almost thought he imagined it. “Do you,” Greg said, not pitching it as a question.
Alex swallowed and finally looked away. “I just– I don’t think it fits the character,” he mumbled.
“I think I’ll be the judge of that, yeah?” Greg said, his voice low, and Alex glanced at him and away again. “Why do you think it can’t be said the way I said it? Matter-of-factly, whatever the fuck that even sounds like?”
Alex sighed again and looked determinedly at a spot over Greg’s shoulder. “You said it like you’ve said it a thousand times before,” he muttered, feeling like a prize idiot. “And I don’t believe that the Taskmaster would have said it to his Assistant enough times for it to be said like that.”
The conversation had long since veered wildly into absolutely ridiculous territory, but Greg looked almost thoughtful, tapping his chin before asking, “So then why not have me try it with a different inflection?” he asked. “Why cut it altogether?”
Alex shrugged, something almost helpless in the gesture. “Because I can’t think of a way it would work and sound genuine,” he admitted. “Both to the characters and to, well, you.”
Greg nodded slowly. “I see.”
Alex chanced a glance at him. “Do you?”
Greg grinned. “No,” he admitted, “I think you might finally have lost it, but—”
“Right,” Alex said sourly, “well, I just thought—”
“Hang on,” Greg said forcefully, “if you’d let me fucking finish.” Alex shook his head but didn’t try to interrupt again, and Greg tapped his fingers against his thigh before telling Alex, “I don’t think the way I said it was out of character,” he said, and Alex stared at him. “And if you’re going to be a little prick about it, I’m going to be an even bigger one back and dig my heels on it.”
He said it almost pleasantly, but Alex knew from experience that he absolutely meant it. “You don’t think it was out of character?” he asked.
“Nope,” Greg said, popping the ‘p’.
Alex scowled at him. “You think the Taskmaster, who, per our established backstory, keeps Little Alex Horne locked in his house to act as his permanent, full-time servant, would have told him that he loves him?”
Greg’s smirk was back. “Yep.”
It was so absurd that Alex almost threw his hands up. “Has someone from production made you read those stories people write about us online again?”
Greg just laughed, and despite himself, the sound warmed Alex from the inside out. “Are you still pretending that someone from production made you read those and you didn’t go seeking them out?”
Alex’s eyes narrowed. “You didn’t answer my question.”
Greg’s smirk sharpened. “And you didn’t answer mine.” Alex just shook his head and Greg arched an eyebrow at him. “Per our established whatever the fuck, backstory or the like, we live together. You do everything for me, including bathing me and putting me to bed, yeah?”
“And taking the dead skin off your feet,” Alex muttered, a little sullen.
“You’re so fucking weird, mate,” Greg sighed, shaking his head with obvious affection. “But yeah, and that.” He looked up at Alex expectantly. “Do you really think after supposedly living together for almost ten years now that the Taskmaster wouldn’t have developed some sort of weird fondness for you?”
The question took Alex by surprise. “I—”
Greg stood, and Alex swallowed on instinct as he looked up at him. “That he’d tell you that you’re a good boy, a sweet boy, his pretty boy,” Greg continued, his voice low, “but would never have said ‘I love you’?”
Alex’s mouth felt dry. “I suppose not,” he managed.
“Because I think he says it all the time,” Greg said, taking a step towards him. “I think he says it just to give himself an excuse to be even nastier the next time. It’s not healthy but literally nothing about this weird, fucked up dynamic we’ve developed is.” He shrugged. “So I do think he’d say it, and matter-of-factly at that. Because to him it’s the most natural thing in the world to say, what with as many times as he’s said it before.”
Alex jerked a nod on instinct alone, taking a step back. “Right.”
Greg searched his expression for a moment before shrugging again. “You can cut the line if you want. But I’m not re-recording it.”
Alex nodded again, turning to head to the door. But something stopped him before he even took a step. “And you really gave it this much thought before you recorded it?” he asked, scepticism finally creeping in.
As expected, Greg laughed. “Of course I fucking didn’t,” he said easily, and Alex sighed, this time with something almost like relief.
“I thought as much.”
“Just like I don’t think you give a shit whether it sounds in character or not,” Greg added cheerfully, and Alex looked sharply at him.
For a moment, he was tempted to deny it outright, to make any number of convincing arguments about how he always cared if their show succeeded or not. But just as he hadn’t been able to leave, he somehow couldn’t seem to force the lie out. “That’s— It wasn’t how I thought I’d hear it.”
Greg’s smiled faded. “Sorry?”
“It wasn’t how I imagined hearing you say that you love me.”
Alex hadn’t meant to say it like that, but he couldn’t take it back now. Instead, he lifted his chin almost defiantly.
Greg’s expression flickered and he looked away. “You mean the Taskmaster,” he said dismissively, and in an instant, whatever defiance Alex had mustered disappeared.
“I– yeah, the Taskmaster,” he said, taking the out that Greg had offered.
But instead of dropping it, Greg looked back at him. “Because whether you think the Taskmaster would, it’s definitely how I would say it.”
Alex seemed to have forgotten how to breathe. “What?”
Greg managed a small, soft half-smile, nothing like his earlier smirk. “I’ve sat next to you for eighteen series now,” he told Alex. “I’ve done dozens if not hundreds of interviews with you. We’ve gone on holiday together, got drunk together, laughed so hard we nearly pissed ourselves together. Of course I love you, you idiot.”
Plain. Easy. Matter-of-fact. Just as he had said it in the voiceover. “Right,” Alex said, for lack of anything else to say.
“And I’d say it just like I did in the voiceover so that you couldn’t squirm out from under it,” Greg added, almost casually, “or make a joke, or worst of all, feel forced to say it back.”
That was pointed, and Alex’s chest felt tight. “Greg—”
But Greg didn’t let him interrupt. “Because that’d be the worst feeling in the world, thinking you were only saying it as your character, and not as you.” He gave Alex a long, searching look. “Wouldn’t it?”
“Yes,” Alex breathed. “Yes, it would.” Greg nodded as if Alex had answered an unspoken question, and started to turn away. In an instant, Alex’s hand flashed out, grabbing his arm. “Greg, I—”
He broke off, the words catching on the tip of his tongue at the knowledge that there would be no going back after this, that they were standing on the razor edge of the precipice they’d been walking for years now.
“What?” Greg asked, his voice quiet and tired, and Alex’s mind was made up for him.
“I love you.”
Plain. Easy. Irrefutable.
Greg shook his head. “Alex—”
“Matter-of-factly,” Alex told him, before echoing his own words back at him. “Of course I love you, you idiot.”
Greg’s answering smile stretched slowly across his face. “Yeah?”
Alex nodded. “Yeah.
For one long moment, they just stood there, staring at each other like two idiots. Alex would never be able to say which of them moved to close the space between them first, but in the end, it didn’t matter. What mattered was that Greg’s lips were on his, and Alex’s hands were balled in Greg’s shirt, tugging him down to kiss him back.
A moment or a lifetime later, they finally broke apart, both men wearing matching, slightly stupid grins. Greg lifted his hand to cup Alex’s cheek, his thumb stroking featherlight against his skin. “Do you want to know how I wanted to say it, if I thought you would let me?” he murmured, and Alex swallowed and nodded.
“Yes, please.”
Greg traced his thumb over Alex’s bottom lip before leaning in to kiss him once more, pulling him close to murmur in his ear, “I love you. I love you, Alex Horne. I love every minute we spend together.” Alex squeezed his eyes shut as Greg continued, “I love everytime you make me laugh, and I love everytime you don’t make me laugh on purpose. I love watching your brain go a thousand miles a minute figuring out the best way to make a joke or to just do something outrageous for the fun of it, and I love knowing that I get to wake up the next day and do it all over again.” He kissed Alex’s temple. “I can’t imagine my life without you in it and I’m so happy that you took a chance on me all those years ago. I love you, Alex.”
Alex felt like his chest was so full that it might burst. “I love you, too, Greg,” he managed, and only barely at that, the words more mumbled in Greg’s shirt than spoken aloud.
Greg chuckled, kissing his temple once more before teasing, “Is that all you’re going to say?”
It wasn’t that Alex didn’t have a million things he wanted to say. He just couldn’t seem to remember what any of them were. “I– I love that as many times as you’ve called me little, you’ve never made me feel small,” he blurted finally, and even though it was a nonsense thing to say, he was still rewarded with Greg’s smile, the corners of his eyes crinkling as he looked down at Alex. “And I love that you laugh with your whole self, even at the stupidest things,” Alex added, feeling at least slightly more even-footed. “And—”
He broke off, because it finally hit what Greg had meant – if he thought Alex would let him.
Oh. Of course.
Greg was still looking expectantly down at him. “And?” he prompted.
Alex just shook his head slowly. “And I love that you know me well enough to know how I needed to hear it the first time,” he said softly. “So that I would believe it.”
Greg grinned as he bent to kiss him once more. “I love you.”
“I know,” Alex told him. “And I love you, too.”
Greg’s grin sharpened. “Now speaking of the stories those internet perverts write, how much time have we got—”
As if designed to thwart his clear intentions, someone knocked on the door and Greg huffed a groan, dropping his head onto Alex’s shoulder. “Yeah?” he called.
“Sorry, is Alex with you?” Andy asked through the door, and Alex glanced at Greg, trying very hard not to laugh.
“Yeah, Andy, what do you need?”
If Andy had any inkling of what he’d interrupted, he had the good sense not to show it. “Do you still need the recording booth?”
Alex sobered at the question, at least slightly, enough to glance again at Greg, this time without laughing. Greg just arched an eyebrow, clearly waiting for him to answer the question.
Alex smiled at him. “No,” he said firmly, and Greg grinned. “I think we’ve got everything we need.”