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Connor liked the idea when he was a kid.
The idea of soulmates; unconditional love, timers making their way down to zero, seeing the same face every morning. He liked the idea of someone always being there to hold his hand and the idea of someone knowing the way he liked his coffee, and the idea of someone being there when he was old, when he was sick, when he couldn't sleep.
And then he grew up.
::
It's not as if he hates the idea.
He liked it once, he'll like it again, Connor's sure. But he liked it when he was a kid and every idea of love or romance was shown on TV screens. Animated Disney movies where there's a boy and a girl and a bad guy, boring films without any cartoons at all that his mom made him sit through, where the parents would argue a lot and it was supposed to be fond. Romance was Lady and the Tramp sharing the same bowl of spaghetti and Connor thought, yeah, soulmates, cool. He didn't even know what sex was, back then.
He'll like it when he's older, too, probably. When he's older, and greyer, when he actually wants to see the same face every morning and wake up to an alarm clock and someone scrambling for their clothes and checking the watch and making their way out of the door without breakfast, let alone a kiss on the cheek. When he wants to settle down into domesticity and all of the rest of that crap. Like, it sounds nice, sure.
But Connor is young, and he's hot, and he doesn't want to settle. Not now, not yet when he can go out for the night and have a stranger's hot mouth leaving marks on his neck. Not when he's yet to learn the way that so many strangers kiss. Not when there are billions of people wandering around the Earth and you're expected, when a few zeroes align on your wrist, to look past every one of them and settle down forever.
Connor doesn't get it. What's more, he doesn't want to get it. Not now. Maybe when he's older, yeah, maybe one day. When he wants to hold the same person every night, when he wants to learn the way only one person kisses, when he wants to only hear one voice crying out into his shoulder.
But not yet, not now.
::
His friends call him a sceptic.
Mostly Wes. But ever since he'd met Rebecca at the start of the year he's been all over that soulmate shit, eating it up. He'd never really mentioned it before, he'd gone ghost when the numbers on his wrist had started to fall. He hadn't mentioned it to Connor, or Laurel, or anyone. Just came in one day, and they'd all been flicking through the pages of their books for some test in a few days, trying to cram as many words inside of their memories as possible, and Wes had just said it.
“Hey, so, I met my soulmate.”
And of course, they'd got no work done after that. Michaela had wanted to know everything and Asher was all over asking how hot she was, and Connor kind of rolled his eyes and hoped no one would notice. They didn't, but had they, they would've said the same thing, so it's not like it matters all that much.
They'd have started on about how Connor has some kind of emotional constipation. Michaela likes to get particularly psycho-analysis on his ass, and it's annoying as fuck, because in this world where everything is supposed to be all fairies and daisies and happily ever after soulmate white weddings – Michaela's already got hers planned, the ring on her finger – no one seems to grasp the concept of casual sex.
“Hell yeah, dude,” Asher will say. Asher will also attempt to high-five him, but Connor knows that Asher loves this soulmate crap, though he'd never admit it. Connor knows that for Asher, it all ends the moment his timer hits zero, and that's the difference: Connor doesn't want his timer to hit zero. Not now, not for a while. He doesn't want a commitment and someone with a matching timer memory of heart eyes. It's not his thing.
Connor doesn't even do boyfriends, he certainly doesn't do soulmates.
::
Connor, generally, doesn't have that much interest in his timer.
A word about timers: inexplicably, people are born with timers on their wrist, counting down from impossibly high numbers that seem never-ending, but typically land people meeting the person they're supposed to die with in their twenties or thirties.
There are anomalies: people without soulmates, people with dead soulmates, and there are people who fuck things up with their soulmates. People get divorced – it's rare, it's frowned upon, but they do. People cheat. People reject their soulmates. Not often, because for the most part people don't gamble with fate. Connor thinks that everyone believes just a little bit too much in destiny.
No one is completely sure how the timers work, Connor least of all. They covered it in a couple of eighth grade science classes, but Connor was well past the interest of soulmates at that point. There isn't much to teach the students in any case. Research is still being carried out, but no one is really sure where to start with the timers. It's only in recent years that people have begun to question where they come from, why they're there. How they work.
Connor doesn't want to know how they work, how his works. How his is working and how close it draws to end game. Every time he thinks about it he already feels suffocated, tied down. He's not into it, this idea of having your own choices when it comes to something so simple as sex and so personal as love determined by a fucking number. It feels like a gamble and Connor doesn't like games he doesn't know how to fix.
And so. He doesn't look at his timer, mostly. Doesn't spare it a glance. He covers it up with long sleeves and watches and he forgets it's there, as best he can when everyone in the damn world is walking around with their hearts on their sleeves.
::
“You won't think like this, y'know, once you meet your soulmate,” Wes says, and Connor laughs.
“Yeah, dude, sure,” he gives Wes a condescending pat on the back and pretends he's not sick and tired of all the presumptions about how he'll feel, based on what he's supposed to feel by the textbook. “We'll see about that.”
::
It happens on a Wednesday.
Connor's in a rush. He's already late for class and expecting Professor Keating to order his execution or something. The fresh burn of too-hot coffee is still burning a little in the back of his throat and he's barely looking where he's going. Connor is rarely late. He likes to be on time for things, it puts him in control. He's always prepared, always got it together, that's the way he likes it to be and the way, nine out of ten times, it is.
It's not exactly a typical occurrence for Connor to head-on collide with someone in his path when he's too distracted flicking through his notes so as not to dig himself a deeper hole by being unprepared in class. He's not clumsy, and usually he's entirely focused on what he's doing, is aware of the world around him. But he does, he bangs his head right against theirs, and he trips and his papers go flying.
Connor blinks, steadying himself as he's knocked backwards a few steps. He groans with frustration upon realising he's dropped everything and bends down to start collecting up his papers before the wind blows them away, so caught up that he doesn't even acknowledge the guy who has like, ruined his life for making him even later.
Once his work is all safely back in his hands, he looks up, and having already forgotten his existence, is a little surprised to see a man standing in front of him and gaping at him as if he's the next reincarnation of the Virgin Mary, or maybe a three-headed dragon. Shifting uncomfortably under his gaze, Connor adjusts his stack of papers, patting them down into a precise pile with the ends of the pages all in line.
“Sorry,” he mutters, figuring the other guy clearly isn't gonna say it first.
“No, uh, don't be,” the other guy says, coughing awkwardly. “I, um.”
“I'm late for class,” Connor interrupts. Like, is this guy trying to hit on him or what, because it's nine in the morning and this isn't Connor's game right now. Rare as an occasion that might be. “Sorry.”
“No, wait,” the guy says, reaching out to grab at Connor's arm. He hesitates then, retracts it back, as if realising he's overstepped a boundary. Connor raises his eyebrow. “Look at, uh. Your wrist. Can I see your wrist?”
“My wrist?”
The guy bites his lip. He's kind of cute, in a nerdy, introverted, probably still owns all of the Sims 2 games kind of way.
“Okay, well, not so much your wrist. I mean, like. Your timer?”
“My timer.”
The guy nods. “Mine hit zero,” he says. “It wasn't on zero when I left the house.”
Connor doesn't like this. He'd known it'd happen someday, but avoids looking at his timer enough that he has no idea where it is. He's never calculated the age he'd be upon meeting his soulmate, he doesn't have any idea whether this guy with the glasses is his soulmate or whether he won't meet them until he's in his thirties. And part of the reason is just this, so he doesn't have to be on the look out every day, the day it falls to so small a number that the hours of his freedom tick, tick, tick away. So he doesn't have to do this, meet some guy in the street. So maybe he'll look one day and it'll be nil, and he'll have no idea who his soulmate is. A nameless face in a whole crowd full of zeroes with their other halves waiting at home.
(He knows, though. He can tell. A niggling feeling in the back of his head, and a curl of butterflies in his stomach. He feels the imprint of unknown numbers burning into his wrist, itching almost, though it's in his head. And he knows.)
“It's a busy street,” Connor says slowly. “Could be anyone.”
(And he knows.)
The guy coughs. “I knew it would be today,” he confesses. “I realised this morning that it would be soon. I've been keeping watch on my timer ever since. That's why I bumped into you, because I was watching the numbers fall. It was down to the few last seconds and that's when I – yeah. You know,” he's quiet for a moment, and then, as an afterthought he adds, “my names Oliver, by the way.”
Connor doesn't know what to say to the rest of his sentence, so he just replies with a short, simple, “I'm Connor.”
“Hey, Connor,” there's an awkward, prolonged pause. Everything feels quiet and isolated and it doesn't make much sense because they're in the middle of a busy street and the world is bustling into colourful action around them, and yet it all feels like white noise. They're not alone, not isolated. They're in the middle of the sidewalk and it's probably pretty inconvenient for everyone who has to walk around them. Connor really doesn't care. He feels like it's just the two of them, somehow, and it's a feeling that makes him nervous. That makes him scared.
“So, um, can – can I see it? Your timer, I mean. I – is that okay? Or – like. I don't know.”
And Connor can't exactly say no. Can't exactly run away now and leave his soulmate standing alone in a crowded street. He's not that much of an asshole. Contrary to all the digs Wes makes, he does actually have a heart, and it's not all frozen over.
“Oh, right. Yeah, sure, man,” Connor says as if it's nothing, holds out his arm and begins to pull up his sleeve, as if it's no big deal, nothing at all. As if he isn't shit-scared. As if there's no chance in hell that this guy, Oliver, is his soulmate. He doesn't fucking want him to be. Already he feels like there are cuffs around his wrists and cameras zooming in to watch him. Like he's been caught, restricted. Trapped by the entire soulmate fabrication.
And right there, on his wrist, the numbers, 00:00:00:00.
“Oh,” Oliver says, his voice very quiet, very small. Connor doesn't really know what to say – like, what do you say when this happens to you?
“I'm really late for class,” is what he ends up saying, albeit inappropriately. A nervous laugh. For once, he's not sure of himself. Michaela would be gleeful. “My professor is totally gonna kill me.”
“You're my soulmate,” Oliver says, voice curious, dazed. He's giving Connor that wide-eyed wonderboy look as well, and like. This feels kind of messed up.
“I guess I am,” Connor says, defeated.
::
Oliver asks for his number – stammers it rather, because he'd kind of been caught up with a whole lot of nerves once the whole soulmate thing had been established. Connor promises to call, he won't, but he assumes Oliver will text him at some point.
Connor goes to class.
It doesn't seem like the right time to go to class. Like, he's just met his soulmate, the person he's by-the-book supposed to spend the rest of his life with, and all he knows is his name.
The entire concept of soulmates has always rang strange to Connor. He's never known what you're supposed to do when you meet them. On TV it's always the same, some cutesy meeting where they fall in love in an instance, go for coffee, and live happily ever after. But the real world isn't like that. Connor had felt a connection to Oliver, sure, a slight one. A wanting to talk to him and the butterflies in his stomach, but that's not love. He has a couple of letters and a couple of numbers and that's the outcome from meeting his soulmate.
Connor is unsure as to whether he and Oliver did it wrong or whether no one really tells their soulmate story as it is.
The class is intense and fast-moving as ever, and it manages to take his mind off of it for a while, even if Professor Keating does give him the kind of look that implies he's going to be missing several limbs in the morning when he stumbles in late during her lecture. It's normalcy, though. Class is the same was it was pre-soulmate discovery, and it's the same now. He pushes Oliver out of his mind and makes sure to focus on answering more questions than Michaela.
It kind of works. Sort of, almost, nearly.
After class, Asher catches up to Connor.
“Why were you late?” he asks. “You're like, never late. Laurel, vouch for me here, Connor's never late.”
“Some shit happened,” Connor shrugs. “You know. Soulmates and all that.”
Wes' eyes pretty much bug out of his head. It'd be almost comical, if Connor wasn't in the middle of some kind of subtle internal breakdown, because he's not ready for a soulmate. He's not ready to give up his life and settle down. Someday, yeah, not today. Connor doesn't want it, doesn't want to settle down and commit. He likes it casual, he likes -
“What?” he splutters. “You met your soulmate?”
“Man, that's hilarious,” Asher says, obnoxious as ever. “What'd you say? I bet you made some excuse about leaving your oven on and bolted.”
“You didn't, right?” Laurel asks him. “You're not that much of an ass.”
“I didn't,” Connor promises. “I'm not that much of an ass.”
“You met your soulmate,” Wes repeats. “Why are you here? Why aren't you with them? You know, as far as excuses go, meeting your soulmate is pretty high on the radar.”
“Because he doesn't want them, idiot,” Asher says. “Whoever it is, I'll bet you, Connor doesn't wanna know.”
“Ding ding ding, we have a winner,” Connor says dryly.
“What are you gonna do?” Laurel asks. “This is your soulmate, Connor, you can't just – pretend they don't exist.”
“I can try. He has my number, I have his. I'll call him when I'm ready.”
Asher snickers, leaning towards Wes to mutter, “lucky guy. He'll be lucky to see his soulmate again in the next decade,” as if Connor is devoid of all hearing, or something.
It doesn't really matter, though. If Connor has his way, he'll probably be right.
::
It takes Oliver three weeks to contact him.
Obviously, he'd figured by that time that Connor wasn't planning to call, as he said he would. Connor feels bad when his name pops up on his phone screen, a little curl of guilt – and, as much as he hates it a small twinge of fluttery butterfly feelings which he despises. That's the thing with soulmates, though. It's an inevitable connection. There's got to be something there, like this tiny invisible string that pulls them together and despite Connor's unwillingness to feel any kind of remorse, when he knows that he's inevitably hurting Oliver a little bit of it hurts him too. That's just the way it works.
Connor hates it, and it takes him three hours to muster the balls to actually open the message. He studies and researches until he has no other excuse to pretend he's doing anything other than blatantly ignoring him.
From: Oliver
[19:04]
Hey Connor, it's Oliver from the a few weeks back. Just wanted to check in. Maybe we could hang out sometime, I don't know. Hope you're good.
Connor spends a long time staring at the words on the screen, hoping they'll somehow rearrange themselves to say; hey, I don't like soulmates either, we can just be friends for a while.
That's not how Oliver thinks, though, he can tell – by the excitement and the wonder in his eyes when they'd first met, it was obvious that he'd been looking forward to this day. Thinking, hoping, wondering.
Like, Connor knows he's an asshole, and mildly narcissistic with a tendency to over-use sarcasm as a defence mechanism. Michaela has tried to psycho-analyse him far too many times, and Connor gets it. But he's not that much of a dick that thinking about how Oliver has probably thought of him and daydreamed about him through his childhood and his adolescence wondering who he'd up spending his life with – because no one expects for their soulmates not to work out – doesn't tug at his heartstrings a little, make him twinge with guilt.
To: Oliver
[22:47]
hey yeah sorry, it's good to hear from you, turns out i lost your number
Honestly, he's not entirely sure why he's lying.
it'd be great to see you sometime
Still not quite sure.
::
Connor is good at excuses.
He's given Oliver the false impression that he is far busier than he is – well, he's a law student. He's pretty busy, and in his down time, despite the 00:00:00:00 marked on his skin, he still goes to clubs, to bars, finds guys. Ends up with kiss-swollen lips and an aching head in the morning. Not that Oliver needs to know that part.
After the third time Connor has been unable to attend one of Oliver's meeting suggestions, he gives up. It's a relief.
Connor knows it's not permanent, or a way out. Oliver will be persistent, of course he will. Connor is his soulmate, he'll pursue him, soon, again. Already they've broken the norm by going well over a month without seeing each other since. When Wes met Rebecca, he was attached to her hip as much as he possibly could be. Rebecca was more like Connor, wanting to take it slow, and Connor loves her for it because if she was a female version Wes, it would probably kill him, but in any case they hung out and spent time together, got to know each other, until Rebecca warmed up. Connor has no intention of doing the same but then Rebecca's hesitations were never quite the same as his.
Connor feels guilty but guilty isn't enough to make him pick up the phone and put his doubts behind him.
::
“Connor?”
Somehow, the voice immediately strikes recognition in Connor and before he's even considered it, thought about it, he knows that it's Oliver. Even though the music is loud and trying to drown out their speech, even though he's only ever spoken to Oliver once in his life, too long ago for his voice to mean anything to Connor. He presumes it's the soulmate thing again, and he turns around, trademark smirk placed upon his face and he thinks about how he fucking hates this whole fate thing that everybody is buying into.
“Oh, hey, Oliver,” he says. “Didn't think I'd run into you here.”
“Yeah, um,” Oliver shrugs, looking back behind him ar a group of guys, staring him down. “Work friends. They thought, uh, I should get out. Meet some new people, while...”
“While,” Connor repeats, and they both know what it means. Oliver looks away.
“You never had any intention of calling me, did you?” he asks, mumbles, his eyes shifting downcast and Connor, then, having to look at him and the disappointment on his face, feels overcome with this huge, shifting sensation of guilt that kind of feels like something has punched him in the stomach. It's either his conscience or it's Laurel. It could be both.
“Look, Oliver...”
“No, it's fine, Connor. It's – yeah. I get it.”
“I don't think you do,” Connor says. “Look, let me – let me buy you a drink. We can hang out, yeah? I just, I – I have some shit going on. You know? It's not. It's not personal.”
“Isn't it?”
“What, you think I have some kind of issue with you?” Connor asks, and Oliver doesn't reply. Connor closes his eyes and he groans a little bit. “Shit, Oliver – no, you've got the wrong conclusion. That's not what it is at all, I swear to God.”
“You sure about that?”
“I'm sure. Come on, stay, don't go back over there, your work mates kinda look like they wanna kill me. I'll buy you a drink. We can hang out and then later we'll go somewhere quiet, and we'll talk. I can explain everything, and I'll tell you now, it's not your fault.”
Oliver looks unsure for a minute, until he nods, arms folded in some kind of defensive position, and Connor grins. He moves towards him, putting his arm around Oliver's waist, wondering why he's going to all of this effort, all of this trouble to make things right when there's an easy escape. A get away, right now. And yet here he is, making nice. His charm is peaking out, his smoothness that he uses when he's always picking up guys, and it's coming out now as he orders Oliver's drink and keeps him close, flirts. It's coming out now and it's all for Oliver.
::
Connor drinks too much.
He always drinks too much. Not enough for the room to be pounding and the sound to breaking and his vision to be cracking up around him, where his head will ache for days tomorrow. Just a little too much to be able to distinguish between a good idea and a really fucking bad one.
It happens in flashes.
Kissing Oliver in the corner of a bar when the lights are dim and the shadows fall over his face so really, he could be anyone. Oliver still has a drink in his hand, and Connor's arms are around his neck.
Back at Oliver's place. The hall lights go on, no one turns it off again, the bedroom light stays dark. Kissing Oliver, his breath hot over his neck, lips ghosting down over his chest, over his stomach, patterning over his thighs, Oliver's breath hitching, his voice cracking when he cries out, and he says, “Connor.”
::
In the morning, when Connor wakes up – and since when the fuck has he fallen asleep at a one night stand anyway, he's usually up as the other drifts into sleep, to save him from the awkward encounter in the morning.
With bleary eyes, he sits up, and he remembers a dark, warm room, and someone reaching out to grasp his wrist and mumbling, “stay,” and he remembers Oliver.
His side of the bed is empty, but on the side table beside Connor, there's a cup of coffee and a couple of aspirin. Connor comes to the quick conclusion that Oliver is sweet.
(Sweet isn't really his type.)
And all of a sudden, he feels a lot worse about everything.
::
He can't avoid Oliver forever, not in his own house, of all places, and so it's only natural that the two of them end up standing awkwardly in his kitchen, Oliver looking at him expectantly and Connor remembers vividly a promise to talk.
We'll go somewhere quiet, then we'll talk.
It's quiet enough to hear a pin drop probably and he doesn't really have an excuse anymore, does he.
“So,” Connor says. “I, uh, I owe you an explanation. Probably.”
“Probably,” Oliver agrees. He coughs. “It's just. It wasn't like this for any of my friends, you know. I shouldn't base my expectations off of everyone else but – it's hard not to, I guess.”
“Yeah, no, I don't blame you.”
“I sort of feel like an idiot.”
“Oliver,” Connor sighs. “Don't, okay, you're not an idiot. I'm just an asshole.”
Oliver doesn't reply, just gives Connor this look that says, yeah, got that, keep talking.
“I'm... not really into the whole, committed relationship thing?” and he wants to bang his head against the wall as he says it, well aware of the fact that he sounds like a prick. He is a prick, what else is new. “I don't know, I just mean. Like. The whole soulmate thing – I don't like it. Not as a concept. Someday, I'll be into it, I'm sure, just, not now. Like, we're young. Why are we supposed to drop everything to be with one person forever? I don't like it. I'm not... ready for it. Not now.”
“Oh,” Oliver says. “I.. that makes sense. I guess.”
“Does it?”
“Well, it's not something I've ever really heard before.”
“Yeah,” Connor says. “Not really a common view point, is it?”
And it's not. Everybody Connor knows follows the soulmate expectation as if they know nothing else, and they don't, he supposes. You're expected, once you meet your soulmate, once your wrist reads 00:00:00:00, for that to be it. It for other people, it for one night stands. No one ever turns around and says they're not ready, Connor's just some kind of fucking anomaly.
He feels sorry for Oliver, most of all. Getting stuck with the non-committal as his soulmate.
“No,” Oliver says. “It's – I definitely wasn't expecting that.”
“It's not you,” Connor says. “Like, I'm not gonna start that whole, it's not you it's me thing, but for real. It's not you.”
“I thought you just didn't like me,” Oliver confesses. “Like you were disappointed. I don't know.”
“I'm not disappointed,” Connor confirms. “Like, not at all. Why would I be? You're cute, Oliver, and you're nice. You're a good fuck, too.”
Oliver goes a little red, and Connor smirks.
“I like you, a lot. Just...”
“Not right now?”
“Can't we just, I don't know. Get to know each other. I won't ignore your texts again, promise. We can be friends. And you can call me your soulmate, 'cause I mean, I am. But no exclusivity.”
“Okay,” Oliver nods, looking a bit dazed. Connor wonders if he understands anything that he's heard today at all. “I can deal with that.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah, I can, I'm sure. And someday...”
“And someday I'll be your soulmate. Like. Properly,” Connor says.
He's standing close to Oliver, now. Hadn't even realised as they'd been talking they'd been getting closer, as Oliver moved a step back for defense, whereas Connor then moved two steps forward. And now they're close, close enough to lean in, kiss him. He moves his hands up to Oliver's shoulders, steadies him where he looks like he's struggling to take it all in. It feels good, to be close to him. And they always say that, about your soulmate's touch, about what it's meant to mean.
“Properly,” Oliver says, voice soft. “You promise?”
“I promise.”
And he's not really sure if it's appropriate, if he's supposed to, if it'll make this whole thing worse. But despite his feelings and this conversation and everything else, Oliver is Connor's soulmate, and Connor wants to kiss him, so he does.
He thinks, they've already slept together, how bad can it be?
Oliver doesn't push him away. Oliver sighs into the kiss, like it comes as a comfort and a release, and Connor's glad for the toothbrush Oliver leant him already, now. He melts into Connor, practically, falls against him and lets him deepen the kiss. Connor can barely remember how his lips felt the night before beneath the blur of alcohol and dim lighting, and it feels good to re-learn him again, the way he moves, feels, tastes, kisses.
It's the weirdest fucking one night stand that Connor has ever had, but he thinks it might be the best, and he likes the feeling of Oliver's hands pressed against his waist gently. Oliver kisses gently, he thinks, when he wants to. Connor likes it a lot.
::
Oliver is still his soulmate, but that's not something Connor likes to linger on. Oliver, more than anything else, he likes to think, is his friend.
And like, okay. So they're more than friends, sometimes, but Connor can deal with that because it's casual and casual is completely Connor's thing. Connor likes things casual. Casual.
That's what it is with Oliver. They're soulmates, sure, and maybe they kiss a lot and fuck sometimes. Maybe. But they're not exclusive, is the thing. Oliver isn't expecting Connor to just give up the way he wants to live and settle down with someone he barely knows – and that's an aspect of soulmates that Connor has always despised. You meet your soulmate, and you don't know them. It's stupid, Connor thinks, to automatically drop everything and fall into some kind of commitment with someone you don't know.
Not that everyone agrees with him, of course.
“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Wes asks him, as if they're not supposed to be studying for a test right now. “Like, that Oliver is okay with it?”
“Yeah, 'course he is,” Connor scoffs. “Why would he say it was fine if he's actually crying himself to sleep over it?”
“Because he doesn't want you to freak out?” Laurel says, an eyebrow raised. She doesn't approve of Connor's casual approach to the whole soulmate thing either.
“Why would I freak out?”
Laurel and Wes exchange a look. Like, a look, and Connor frowns.
“What?”
“Commitment issues?” Wes suggests helpfully.
“I don't have commitment issues,” Connor protests. “When have I ever said I have commitment issues?”
“You don't have to say it,” Asher says, entering the room as if he was even supposed to be here. He's not part of their totally exclusive study group, and he doesn't even have his notes with him. Connor thinks he's just here to raid his fridge. He's probably right. “It's obvious.”
“If Asher noticed it, it has to be obvious, doesn't it?” Laurel says pointedly, and Connor scowls. He hates them all and he needs better friends.
“That's offensive, actually,” Connor says.
“Connor, remember that guy from Keating's class you were sleeping with a while back?” Wes asks. Connor doesn't know, but saying “which one” will probably prove more their point than his, so he just gives Wes a blank look.
“Which one?” Asher snorts, so Connor doesn't have to. It sounds a lot worse coming out of his mouth, though.
“I don't know his name!” Wes says. “Uh, he had blonde hair.”
“Oh, I know who you mean,” Connor says. “Yeah, I remember.”
“Why aren't you sleeping with him anymore?”
Connor pauses. “Um, incompatible,” he mutters.
“You mean he asked you to be exclusive and you told him you were moving away? And then stayed in the same class as him for the rest of the semester? And came back for the next one? And just never spoke to him again?” Wes continues, voice innocent. Asher is beside himself with laughter. Connor is glad Michaela isn't here.
“That... is not a fair argument,” Connor mumbles.
Wes pats him on the back. “No commitment issues,” he says. “Yeah, keep telling yourself that.”
::
“Turn it off,” the guy mutters – Connor isn't really sure what his name is, James or Jake or something, the bar had been loud, as his screen flashes and shines up a bright white light in the room.
“Forget about it,” Connor says, and his next few words are between kisses, “it's not important.”
He moves his lips from his mouth down over onto his neck, and from over his shoulder he can just about make out an ID on the last few texts that have come through, all from Oliver. He feels like he should answer it, at least see what it is, because it's the third time now but J-something is groaning under the feeling of Connor's lips against his skin, and his hand reaches down over Connor's thighs and moving up, and he can't really find it in him to care.
“S'distracting,” the guy mumbles. “Just wanna focus on you.”
Connor kind of wants to roll his eyes, but if he fucks like he kisses then Connor can deal with it. He reaches over and holds down the off button, and looks up at the guy from the bar, eyebrows raised.
“You happy, now?” he asks, expectant, and the guy nods.
“Yeah,” he murmurs, and he pushes Connor down against the mattress, kissing him again.
::
Connor makes up for the fact that he'd kind of ignored Oliver the previous night by turning up at his apartment with take-out Chinese food and his biggest smile.
Oliver lets him in, no questions asked, and they make an agreement that if Connor will let Oliver watch one of his super nerdy sci-fi movies, Connor gets to choose the next one. It's totally not a dating thing, he tells himself, because dates are cute. And stuff. There are aliens getting blown to smithereens on the TV. Not cute. Not romantic. Connor spends half of the time thinking about what he can force Oliver into watching that he'll hate the most. He doesn't care what Wes says, he's an excellent friend.
Mid-way through the movie though, Connor does find himself getting a bit restless. Despite Oliver's running commentary, and his attempt at humour, it's still not really holding Connor's interest and even though Oliver has tried to explain the plot – well, Connor wasn't really listening.
He's bored, though. The only good part about watching this is Oliver's enthusiasm for all of the weird, geeky shit that Connor doesn't really get. His face lights up, it's that kind of smile when he laughs and tells Connor he first watched this when he was eleven years old. It's cute, and so Connor deals with it. For a while.
He's getting kind of tired of Oliver's attention being focused on blurry, low quality alien costumes and bad special effects instead of on him. It's completely subconscious when his hand trails it's way over onto Oliver's thigh, fingers stroking down over the fabric of his jeans as Connor's eyes follow the TV. Another alien gets blown up.
From the corner of his eye, Connor can see Oliver's eyes glance down to look at his hand. He can see the small smile, but Oliver doesn't say or do anything at all. He makes another bad alien joke, and Connor wonders if working in IT is a cover for being the guy behind the popsicle stick jokes. It wouldn't surprise him.
Connor doesn't like being ignored though.
He moves his hand up Oliver's thigh slowly, gently, and feels Oliver glaring at him. He turns his head, tilts it to the side and says, ever innocent, “what?”
“You know what,” Oliver mutters. “Don't corrupt my childhood memories with sex, Connor.”
“Why not?” Connor smirks. “Sex makes everything better.”
“Even outdated sci-fi movies?”
“Especially outdated sci-fi movies,” he agrees, and then he leans forwards and kisses Oliver hard.
Oliver kisses him back – for a minute, and then he pulls away.
“Hey, slow down,” he says.
“I'm not really into slow,” Connor replies.
“There are literally aliens being blown up on my TV.”
“Seems like pretty good music to me.”
Oliver laughs a little bit, leaning forward to press pause on the remote control, and Connor's pretty glad about that. The awful, outdated distortion sounds used for the aliens voices was giving him a headache. He leans in again, and presses a small, lingering kiss on Oliver's lips, like he's asking whether or not they're good to go now.
“What happened to you last night?” Oliver asks him quietly, and Connor draws back, not really sure how to respond.
He smirks. “I was, uh, with a friend.”
Oliver looks away, and Connor feels like he's given the wrong answer – to which, what the fuck. That shouldn't be the wrong answer. There should be no wrong answer because it's not like Oliver has any kind of hold on him, or his life, or what he does, or who he fucks.
“Oliver?”
“Yeah, yeah, I know,” Oliver mutters. “We're not, like, exclusive.”
“Yeah,” Connor says. “We're not. So what's up?”
“Nothing, forget I said anything.”
“Kind of hard to. I thought you were cool with it?”
“I am,” Oliver insists, and Connor raises an eyebrow.
“You sure about that?”
“I'm sure. But I paused my favourite childhood movie for you, so are you gonna kiss me, or what?”
Connor sort of feels like they should talk about it, because there was something off about Oliver, for a moment. But the thought of it sets red alerts going and warning bells ringing in his head and tells himself that if Oliver says it's nothing then it's nothing.
::
Connor isn't stupid.
He's aware of the fact that Oliver is less than happy with their current arrangement, actually. How it was okay at first but now maybe he does want exclusivity, some kind of commitment – even if he's never put it into words, Connor can feel it. He can sense it from the way that Oliver curls up against him in his sleep (Connor doesn't turn over, he wraps his arm around Oliver's waist and pulls him closer) and texts him in the mornings with something stupid like the eggplant emoji (Connor started it with the grandma emoji). The way Oliver's voice goes quiet when Connor makes any kind of subtle reference to the fact that he's seeing other people.
It makes him feel bad, too, which is. Well.
Connor shouldn't feel bad, surely, because he and Oliver had set up this arrangement between the two of them for the good of things, for their own benefit, so things would work between them. Oliver knew what he was getting into, he knows Connor doesn't like to commit, and he shouldn't be like this, now. He shouldn't be upset.
Connor should feel more annoyed than he does, probably, and less guilty. But apparently he doesn't get a say in the way that his head thinks and his heart feels and so instead of getting mad, he's just extra nice to Oliver. Cuter. Like – like a boyfriend, even though they're not.
“Rough day at work?” he offers, and Oliver gives him a tight smile.
“Something like that,” Oliver mutters. Connor is pretty sure that in actual fact it has something to do with the texts he'd seen last night, from some guy Connor met at a bar asking if he wants to see him again.
(Connor deleted the message, right in front of Oliver, so he could see. He's not sure why he did that.)
“I can make you feel better,” Connor says, moves, captures the corner of Oliver's mouth in a chaste kiss. “Let me help you forget about it?”
“You ever think about anything other than sex?” Oliver asks, voice coming out half shaky, a little bit like stuttered laughter. Like he's actually pretty upset, or something.
“Yeah, sure,” Connor says. “I think about lots of things.”
“For example?”
“For example...” Connor presses another kiss to his lips. “I think about how much I like IT workers,” kiss, “and how much I love making out to sci-fi movies,” and again, “and how often I find that IT workers have really great legs.”
“So that's a no then?” Oliver says, but he's smiling a little bit now, leaning more into Connor, letting the two of them be close together.
“I don't know what you mean,” Connor smirks. “If you took that sexually then maybe you're the one with a sex problem out of the two of us.”
Oliver rolls his eyes, groans, and he lets his head fall against Connor for a moment.
“You're exhausting, you know that?” he says, and he says it in a light-hearted, joking manner, but Connor can't help but wonder if there's an undertone whispering how Oliver really feels.
“Sex addict or no sex addict,” Connor says. “Let me make you feel good?”
“Connor...”
“C'mon, Oliver,” he says. “I wanna show you how much I like you.”
Connor isn't sure if Oliver understands what he's trying to say, what he means, underneath those words, between the lines – he doesn't realise it himself, really, not until he's said it and even then it's only a murmur, one so quiet that his loud thoughts of protest cancel it out in seconds.
Regardless of whether he does or he doesn't, Oliver leans in and kisses Connor, and his arms latch around his waist and Connor thinks for a split second that maybe he doesn't want to do this with anyone else.
But only for a split second.
::
The thought resonates once again the next time he's out, and there's a nameless face with hands that reach out around his waist, pulling him closer as the thrum of music clears every thought out of Connor's head other than the fact that maybe, he'd want to be with someone else.
And it's still there when they're back at his place, and Connor's learning the way that he kisses. Not at all like Oliver, too fast, and too quick, and too hot all at once.
When his hands are roaming over Connor's body, and he reacts the way he would at any touch, only human, but there's something still that feels a little wrong. The wrong name in his throat, and he presses his lips tight not to say it. The wrong want that floods through him, something that stops it being as good as it should be.
Connor can't put a name to it, the feeling. When all of the thoughts fly into his mind like an explosion of colours too fast and too clouding and messing him up, pressing him to think in the moments where he doesn't want to, he kisses the guy again, harder, faster (not at all like the chaste way he'd kissed Oliver the other morning when he'd left the house at seven am, another night spent together) and makes himself to forget.
It doesn't feel right, somehow.
Connor fucks him anyway.
::
The problem with Oliver is that he's got to Connor, and no one has ever got to him before. Not like this, anyway.
The closest he'd ever come to was Aiden, way back, too long ago, so long that Connor should have forgotten but he can't quite because the memory of gritted teeth and awkward moments and long silences resounding in the nights after they'd ended, in the dormitory they'd both shared, when they'd both lie awake breathing pretending to wonder if the other was asleep.
Aiden had got to him because just for a little while, Connor had thought that maybe it meant something. That maybe they were something. That maybe he didn't want to sneak off with all of the boys who were longing for the kind of touches that Connor was willing to give for nothing when all the girls they wanted were too far away.
It wasn't like that though, he knows that now. Thinks maybe he knew it then, too, but Oliver isn't like that.
The difference is that Oliver wants him back, and he's made no secret of it. He touches Connor lovingly, and he's affectionate because he wants to be, and there's a clear distinction between the way that he touches Connor when he wants to fuck and the way that he does when he just wants intimacy, to be close to him. Because he wants something from Connor that isn't just sex.
With Aiden, it couldn't be like that – it was abrupt, awkward, eventually. And at first it'd be fine to be best friends that kissed in the night and gave each other messy, awkward handjobs when they were sixteen and horny and, yeah. But then it wasn't because Aiden clearly couldn't brush his arm without flashing back to memories of racing hearts and heavy breathing and messy kisses.
It was kind of all-or-nothing; Aiden chose nothing.
(Connor wanted all.)
::
Oliver gets under his skin, and Connor hates it.
No one – not even Aiden, and he was his best friend – got to him quite like this. Connor, usually, after past experience, prefers to keep his friendships and his sex escapades pretty separate. There are exceptions, but his general rule is that if someone is a good friend of his, he shouldn't fuck them.
Oliver is definitely his friend. One of the closest he has, actually. But he can't bring himself not to kiss him, not to fuck him. There's no one he wants to more, really. And that kind of scares him. The idea of commitment has always scared him, and he won't admit it it out loud but Wes was right.
The problem is that when he's with Oliver, he's not scared at all.
::
Connor is often the type to pull away and jump far back at the first sign of proper feelings – especially if they're his own.
However the months pass by too quickly for Connor to even realise, and he's busier than he'd like to be with law school and preparation for the future and his life and yet, somehow, has the time to fall asleep next to Oliver more than once a week.
He can't run. He doesn't want to run. So he doesn't run.
::
The two of them are the picture of perfect fucking domesticity when it hits Connor, what they're doing here. When it's ten pm and he's almost falling asleep on Oliver's shoulder again, about to stay the night for the third time in a row because it'd been a long, tiring day, and Oliver made him dinner and kissed the corner of his mouth, and his shoulder, and they haven't even had sex.
He's drowsy, barely conscious of the thrum of the television in the background and Oliver typing away on his keyboard beside him, Connor resting against his arm with his head lying on him. The realisation hits him and he sits up with a jolt, heart beat bursting into a flurry of fast-paced stuttering, and it's sudden enough to startle Oliver who blinks, adjusts his glasses.
“Are you okay?” he asks. “Did you have a nightmare or something?”
His kindness, his affection, his care, all of it unprompted and unscripted and sudden and chosen, it makes Connor's lips ache to smile but it also makes him want to dive out of the fucking window and fall to the ground with a cloud of glass shards.
He can't deal with it.
He has a boyfriend. That's what this is. It's unspoken and unwritten but when you put the pieces together that's exactly what this is, what they are. Oliver is the only person Connor has been with in the past, like, month and a half, and the woman behind the counter at the Indian restaurant they'd gone to the other night had referred to them as a lovely couple, and Connor had laughed.
“Couple, huh?” he'd said. “What, are we the next Brangelina?”
And Oliver had laughed too, and they'd joked and nothing was set in stone and they didn't talk about it and perhaps they should have because now it's a Wednesday night and Connor has class tomorrow and Oliver has work and they're not here for fucking, they're just spending the night together without even suggesting it in words. For the third night in a row. Because Connor has practically moved in with him, and he has a fucking boyfriend.
Connor doesn't do boyfriends.
The timers on a person's wrist, though they fall and the numbers change and they hit zero and they change your life, cannot cause you any physical feelings that are not caused by yourself or by a third party. If the numbers itch and make you scratch then it's your skin, not the timer. If you find it hurting then the pain is in your wrist, not your timer.
The most common cause of assumed timer pain is distress about, or relating to, your soulmate, your counter. When you subconsciously scratch the skin until it stings and you don't realise your doing it. When you panic and you feel hot from inside and out, but especially on that one spot, across your wrist, because the heat centres where the anxiety is triggered.
Connor hasn't felt any kind of peculiar sensation from his timer since he'd first met Oliver when his timer had felt as though it was burning straight into his skin and carving the numbers, the 00:00:00:00 out in a flesh scar. When he'd felt the prickling sensation of pain and discomfort. That had been psychological, not physical, it's the same now.
Connor hasn't felt his timer in months because he's felt no distress in months. Strangely, he's felt okay. Safe. Loved. Like he had accepted Oliver has his soulmate, finally, because he'd forgotten the fact entirely that they were soulmates.
But now he remembers. And God, does he feel it.
“Connor?”
“No,” Connor shakes his head. “I didn't I just – I have to go.”
“Now?” Oliver looks concerned. “Are you sure? It's late. You can stay-”
“No,” he says. “It's best if I go. Like. We need our own space.”
“What's happened?” Oliver asks, looking a little hurt. “Connor-” he reaches out to touch him, but Connor jerks away.
“Oliver, don't make a big deal out of this,” Connor snaps. “What does it matter if I don't stay the night? It's not like we're together or something.”
Oliver, at that, looks stricken.
“We aren't?” he says.
“We said from the start we're not exclusive.”
“Yeah. Yeah, I know, I just,” Oliver won't meet his gaze, though Connor tries hard to catch his eye. To look at him with a challenging defiance. “I thought things had changed.”
“Nothings changed.”
“But you stopped – you stopped being with other people. You're here all the time. It's not like before.”
Connor shakes his head. “This is why you shouldn't befriend people you fuck,” he mutters, and then he looks at Oliver again and finds this time Oliver is staring right at him. With this hurt look on his face, a strange look in his eyes. Disappointment, maybe. It could be bitterness.
“That's what this is, then,” Oliver says.
“What else did you think it was?” Connor means for it to be sharp, but it comes out weak, trying.
“You know what, you're right. You should go.”
Connor wants to leave, wants to bolt out of the door and hear it slamming behind him and the resonating sound will feel something like freedom.
But there's an overlay of sadness, a longing. A guilt. Connor isn't sure what this feeling is but there's something in his chest that strains and aches and there's a sickness in his stomach, and he's never, ever felt like this before.
He makes no motion to move, frozen on his feet. He feels so torn, so confused. He wants to run far, far away, detach himself. Scrub himself clean until he can't feel Oliver on his body anymore, until his skin is red raw and stinging and he can't remember Oliver's name.
“Oliver,” Connor says. His voice soft. He's not sure what he needs to say next.
“I said you should go,” Oliver repeats. “Connor. Just. Leave, okay? And maybe don't come back. Even if we are soulmates.”
“You mean. You mean like, permanent?”
Oliver shrugs. Connor's got this awful feeling that the blank expression on his face and the straight line of his mouth, unfeeling, is going to collapse and fall apart the moment he's gone. Besides the flicker of hurt in his eyes, Oliver looks well put together and yet Connor knows he's far from. And he feels like a tyrant who has torn a city apart from inside out and is just waiting for the buildings to fall into ruin, broken stone and cut glass.
“Maybe I do,” he says eventually. Quietly.
“But we're-” Connor doesn't want to say it. He hates the word. Hates it. Connor is just a puppet and fate is pulling the strings, and Connor was so close to cutting himself down until another puppet got caught beside him and now they both fall when one doesn't want to. That doesn't seem fair.
“We're soulmates, yeah,” Oliver says, supplying the word so Connor doesn't have to. “But not everyone ends up together, just because they're soulmates. You don't even want a soulmate.”
“I just need some time.”
“I don't have any left to give you.”
The human mind is naturally programmed to respond with fear towards loud noises and yet Connor thinks that's crazy, because sometimes quiet can be the scariest sound at all.
“What are you still doing here, Connor?” Oliver asks tiredly. “You wanted to leave. I told you to leave. I want you to leave. Please just – just get out.”
Connor wants to argue but he has nothing left to say and so, for the first time, Connor Walsh admits defeat to a battle which he started.
He shows himself to the door.
::
It takes Connor precisely three and a half minutes to make his way down out of Oliver's building and into the street, the sky dark and the air cold and the cars going too fast, their lights making his head spin.
It takes Connor three and a half minutes to realise he's made the worst fucking choice of his life.
::
Connor is not the kind of person to mope.
Usually, when something goes wrong, he's pretty quick to fix it and if he can't then he gets over it. That's always been a pretty good trait of his, how generally nothing fazes him, nothing holds him down for long. He's always ahead of his game, always one step ahead planning his movements and so nothing can get his guard down and leave him vulnerable.
When something gets to him, he doesn't let it show. He's doing a pretty shit job of that.
He misses Oliver – in the way that he never really thought he would. Connor isn't the kind of guy who has ever really had to miss much. He doesn't miss people very often. If he misses his mom, he can call her. If he misses his old friends, he can text them, make his way home to see the people he grew up with and his family. It's not like money is much of a problem. It's not an impossible distance.
Connor has never missed someone in a way that can't easily be satiated by a phone call, going the distance. Except Aiden and, well. Connor got over him.
But if he calls Oliver, Oliver will cut the call. He doesn't bother texting because he doesn't want a reply and he's scared to turn up at his apartment. It's bad form, surely, to turn up unexpected, uninvited, at the home of someone who kicked you out the last time you saw them. Connor's not that desperate, not at all.
So he tells himself to forget.
So he goes out, dingy bar, not his usual scene in case he finds himself bumping into Oliver, Oliver with a guy, anyone who knows his name. Connor Walsh is the man with the timer linked to his and surely if he goes to a place where nobody knows him, he won't be Connor Walsh, and his timer won't mean a thing, and Oliver won't be his soulmate. Tonight, he can be a stranger, even to himself – and it's fitting because the strange feelings hanging heavy on his chest, and his heart, are feelings so unfamiliar that he feels as if he's walking around in his own skin with somebody else's soul infringing onto his, like a stranger is tainting his thoughts and burning digits into his flesh, zero zero zero.
He's not there for the vibe anyway, not for the atmosphere, not for the interior décor or the music. Connor just wants a fuck, someone to kiss roughly, someone to make him forget because the best place to lose yourself is in between someone else's bedsheets.
And he meets a guy: tall and dark and lean. The kind of guy he wouldn't expect to see here, with shirt sleeves pulled down and a watch around his wrist and Connor suspects he's already found his soulmate and he shouldn't be here, thinks that he's probably trying to hide from who he loves within the darkness of someone else's bedroom. But the guy doesn't ask and Connor doesn't tell. He knows his name but he doesn't wanna say it, it feels wrong on his lips and tastes bad on his tongue. So he doesn't. And the guy doesn't notice.
He kisses wrong.
Connor has never had a wrong way to kiss before. And if they'd met like this before, if Connor could turn back time a few months, tip the hands upon the clock backwards, he wouldn't complain at all. Because he kisses good, and hot, and rough, and he cups Connor's face and pushes him back against the wall and Connor can't think, but that's not a bad thing. Not usually.
But it is tonight.
And, just like his name, his lips feel wrong against Connor's, taste wrong. And his hands are too big and his shoulders are too square and his eyes weren't the right colour even if they're closed now, and Connor can't do this, he realises. He can't do this.
He pushes the guy off of him, and he feels wrong. Feels like he can taste dirt in the back of his throat sticking to his tongue and the numbers on his wrist burn. It's a slow ache, not a sting. It's like his body is saying, I'm tired, and I want him, and don't do this anymore.
Go back to him, maybe.
Like everything here is saying, this is wrong. It isn't loud enough here for Connor's thoughts to be drowned out, so he can't pretend that every inch of his body and every fucking thought isn't longing for Oliver, for every part of him. The lights aren't dark enough for Connor to pretend even for a minute that he's kissing the boy he wants to kiss, and the man, the stranger, he looks at Connor with confusion.
And Oliver has never looked at him like this. But he has looked at him in different ways: from his eyes crinkled and his lips curved up in a smile and his teeth showing and his head back in laughter, to the look of anger and hurt and sadness when he'd kicked Connor out and slammed the door and the city had been so loud and yet everything was white noise.
“What's wrong?” the guy asks.
Connor shakes his head. “I'm sorry,” he mutters, voice gruff. Not sorry at all. He's not sorry, not at all, not to this prick, this cheating prick who is so much like Connor that it's scary.
Connor doesn't want to be this guy. Doesn't want to hang out in dingy bars picking up guys and pretending there's nobody in the world that loves him. Connor knows what he wants to be, a lawyer, but he doesn't know who he wants to be. At the very least, he knows that he doesn't want to be this guy.
“I can't do this right now.”
“Where you going?” the man asks. “Hey, are you sure?”
“Go back to your boyfriend, your wife, whoever,” Connor says. He wants to say, and I'll go back to mine.
The cost of getting home would be cheaper back to Oliver's than it is all the way across town to his own apartment. He considers this in the back of a cab and he thinks, dazedly, tiredly, that it's a sign.
And then he hates himself for it, a little bit.
::
Connor spends the next few weeks in a daze.
And it's weird, because he's never been like this before over anything at all, not even Aiden, and that's the closest Connor has ever come to being hung up on a guy. Connor doesn't get hung up on guys. Guys get hung up on him. Connor has never had a boyfriend before and so he's certainly never had a break up. He hasn't liked the idea of soulmates in a long time but suddenly he likes the idea of not having one even less.
And that's what makes it the hardest, really; the fact that Oliver is the person he's supposed to be with forever, love him unconditionally. He didn't want it before but one day he'll want to wake up beside someone and for a little while that person had a face, and a name, and a timer that hit zeroes at the same time as his did. Not having that doesn't feel right.
Because there are some soulmates that don't work out, and sometimes 'fate' (and what the fuck is that anyway, Connor wonders, it's been mentioned in Science and in History and in Philosophy but he's never been given a straight answer) gets it wrong, but, like.
Connor doesn't think it's wrong, this time. And there's this sick, sad, pathetic feeling that he can't quite shake off because Oliver's on the other side of town and Connor is sleeping alone and apparently this isn't the kind of thing he can fuck away. He's not sure how to deal with that.
::
Connor and Michaela have a weird kind of friendship.
Like, they're friends. Now. Connor's not entirely sure how that happened, because at the start of Keating's class, Michaela had been Connor's only competitor and so they'd been rivals in a sort of Ash-Ketchum-Gary-Oak style. They'd done a pretty spectacular job of acting like eight year olds, and then the semi-hatred had faded out into a strange sort of friendship where they insult each other constantly.
And yet, Michaela always has his back.
She isn't the person he'd usually go to to whine about his boy problems, mainly because boy problems are a bit of a weird area for them, since she's dating the guy he thought he was in love with for a little while. Engaged, even. Soulmates and all. But it's come up a few times, her and Aiden, when there's been trouble in paradise or whatever.
Connor can't help but think that Aiden, even his memory, doesn't matter to him one little bit anymore.
So: it's an accident that it's Michaela that he ends up on when they go out with the others on Friday night. Connor hasn't got stupid-drunk since he was eighteen and he's certainly never turned out to be an emotional wreck on someone's shoulder, but. In the morning, he wishes there were gaps in his memory so he could forget ever having Michaela help pull him into a cab with her, the taxi driver making lewd comments, under some twisted impression that the two of them were actually going to hook up. Like, yeah, not bloody likely.
Connor is not one to talk about his boy problems with anyone, let alone Michaela – he's not one to have boy problems at all, in general, ever. So when he wakes up with a glass of water, two painkillers on his bedside table, and Michaela sat at his kitchen table writing an essay, he's sort of torn between digging himself a hole far, far under ground, or just bursting into flames. Unfortunately, on the fifth floor of his apartment building where he is most certainly not flammable or at risk of spontaneous combustion, neither seem likely.
“Sit down, Connor,” Michaela says. “We're gonna talk about this, because if I'm going to beat you in all of our exams, I want you to be on your game so it's a fair contest.”
Connor blinks. He's hungover as fuck. Michaela is using too many syllables for this early in the morning.
“Uh.”
“You heard me,” Michaela says. “You've been acting dead inside for the past month and apparently, I can't ignore it anymore. So we're going to fix this, so you stop acting pathetic, and I can stop breaking the rivalry to be a supportive friend. Sound good?”
“I – yeah. Okay. Whatever, sure,” Connor mutters. He slumps down into the breakfast chair. If he's going to get a therapy session, at least he doesn't have to pay for it.
::
Michaela deduces that Connor is a mess, and that his commitment phobia has finally come back to bite him in the ass, and she's been waiting for this day for weeks.
She is nice, though. She makes him coffee, and she tells him that he has to either get over him, or get him back.
“Maybe you need to move on,” she suggests hesitantly. “Like, you know. You might both be better off with other people.”
“He's my soulmate,” Connor reminds her. “Like, fate and shit.”
“Doesn't always work out though, does it?” Michaela says, rolling her eyes. “That's why divorce exists. Not everyone ends up with their soulmate.”
“Yeah, well,” Connor mutters. “I want to end up with mine.”
“Do something about it then.”
Connor just shrugs, non-committally. Because he's stubborn and he doesn't want to talk to Oliver. Because he's still scared of commitment. Because he still hates the idea of soulmates and what-the-fuck-ever-fate and not having a choice in who he is supposed to be with.
“Oh my God, I remember why I hate you now,” Michaela says – although she totally doesn't hate Connor. “You're so stubborn.”
“You're exactly the same.”
“You realise this isn't going to work in your favour, right? If you don't talk to him, nothing is going to change.”
Connor is tired of talking about it.
“I'll just have to get over it then,” he says. As if that's any kind of option at all. He hopes it is.
::
Connor would like to think that Michaela is wrong about a lot of things. That's debatable, he supposes, if they're not talking about law school and are on the subject of something else, like Shakespeare or long division.
But she isn't wrong about this, and Connor hates it.
He doesn't text, or call, or show up at Oliver's apartment laden with flowers and takeout and apologies.
He doesn't do anything at all.
::
Connor is on his way back to his apartment, grocery bags weighing down his arms when he stops in his tracks at the sight of a familiar figure, lanky and tall with glasses that Connor's worn over his own eyes in experimentation once or twice framing his face, leant against the wall by the door.
Connor drops both grocery bags down to his feet. He spares a moment to think, shit, hope the milk didn't burst. And then he wonders why the fuck he is thinking about milk when Oliver, his soulmate, is standing outside of his apartment when Connor hasn't seen him in two months.
Two months. Two months since Connor almost, maybe, broke his heart. And it had been unintentional but he'd hurt his own more anyway.
At least the noise, the plastic bags brushing together and the thump against the floor, gets Oliver's attention so that Connor doesn't have to speak to him first, or cough awkwardly. Or have a repeat of the first time they'd ever met when they'd bumped into each other in the middle of the street – Connor wonders if he and Oliver's entire relationship is not just a series of clichés and mistakes (mostly on his part.)
“Connor,” Oliver says. “Hey. I. Um.”
“Hey,” Connor says. He's always been smoother than Oliver has. Less prone to stuttering and stammering and not knowing what to say. He wonders if he sounds that way now, like he's fine, like everything is under his control, or if Oliver can see the cracks in that façade and knows Connor doesn't have a fucking clue what they're doing here. What he's doing here.
“I just. It's been a while.”
“Yeah,” Connor says. He coughs. “You, uh, you told me not to call you or anything.”
“That doesn't mean I didn't think you would.”
Connor raises an eyebrow. “So what did you want me to do?”
“I don't know,” Oliver says. “I meant it, I did, yeah. But that doesn't mean I don't kind of wish you did.”
“I wanted to, but...”
“But you're Connor, and you don't do big gestures or apologies, right?”
“Oliver-”
“And you don't do boyfriends.”
“Not generally,” Connor says.
Oliver looks uncomfortable. “I feel like I shouldn't have come here.”
“No, you should have. Don't – don't go, shit. Look. I don't generally but with you, and with us – that wasn't just, like, fucking or something. That was – we were together. We were. Even though I didn't really get it at the time. I get it now, and I know we were.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. So no, I don't generally do boyfriends, but I did with you. Because you were my boyfriend.”
Oliver pauses for a moment and Connor hates the way that he wants to rush forward and kiss him, push him up against the wall and kiss him, hard and rough and desperate, so that he can say 'I miss you' and 'I'm sorry' and 'I really love you' without saying any words at all. And then he wants to kiss him softly, and lovingly, so that even if he's still scared to say the words he can press them up against Oliver's lips anyway.
And then he wants to kiss his hair, and he wants to kiss his cheek, and he wants to kiss his shoulder, just because he can, just to get closer to him.
(Connor doesn't realise he's thought those words until seconds later, when it hits him. And he's fucking terrified. And he can't run. And he doesn't want to run. So he doesn't run.)
Maybe he's in love with Oliver, and maybe he's picked the worst time in the world to realise it, and maybe his heart is racing, and his palms are sweating and he's scared to fucking death, but. Like. He loves him. So he can make it work. Maybe. Some things are worth being scared for, maybe.
“Can I come inside?” Oliver asks – pulls Connor out of this strange realisation. That he's in love. That he's terrified. That they might both be the same thing.
He nods, wordlessly. And he reaches out both hands to pick up the grocery bags and carries them inside and Oliver looks around. They'd only spent a few nights here, Connor much preferring the homely feeling of Oliver's place to his own, but just his presence here makes it feel warmer, more his own, somehow.
Connor doesn't know how to do this.
“Why are you here?” he asks.
“Michaela came to see me,” Oliver admits. “Your friend. From law school.”
“You're joking, right? Tell me you're joking.”
“No, she did. She was worried about you. She said you were having some kind of breakdown and not acting like yourself. And that you were like, a mess and stuff.”
“I'm going to kill her,” Connor says. Connor is not a mess. Even when he's fucked up and he kind of wants to punch himself in the face, he's still 80% more put together than Wes or Asher. Probably.
“I think she was just concerned about you,” Oliver says. Connor snorts.
“Yeah, sure,” he says. He pauses. “What else did she say?”
“That you missed me, and you were sorry. But you were too stubborn to do anything about it.”
“Hey, you didn't wanna see me,” Connor protests. “I thought you like, hated me. I'm not gonna turn up at your door looking desperate after that.”
“I never hated you,” Oliver shakes his head. “I just couldn't do it anymore, you know. I was just pissed and sick of seeing you sleep in other people's beds and then come back for dinner the next day as if nothing had happened.”
“I told you I didn't want to settle down,” Connor says. “You said you'd wait.”
“You can't expect me to wait forever, Connor.”
Connor closes his eyes, briefly, just for a second. “Yeah,” he says. “I guess you're right.”
Neither of them say anything for a few moments. When Connor looks up again at Oliver, he sees him avoiding his gaze, fidgeting with his sleeves, and they're saying all of these things and making these confessions, but they're still going nowhere.
“I'm really sorry,” he says. “I, uh. I fucked up. And I fucked you over. I've never done this before, like, a break-up, or a relationship, or an apology. But you deserved a lot better, and I'm so sorry, Oliver.”
“I miss you,” Oliver says. “I don't want to keep doing this but I don't want it like it was before. You can't, like – do that again. It's not fair.”
“I know,” Connor says. “I know, it's okay.”
Oliver looks doubtful. “But you don't want to, do you?”
“I'm, well, I'm fucking scared,” Connor admits. “I've never done this before. I didn't think I wanted it and I'm not always sure but – I want to try, if you'll let me. I mean, you're my soulmate, right?”
“Right,” Oliver agrees, slowly. “Are you – you're serious?”
“I'm serious,” Connor nods. “I'm so bad at relationships but it's not hard with you.”
“But you don't like commitment-”
“I know,” Connor interrupts. “But I love you. So.”
It doesn't seem like the best time to say it, standing in Connor's hall way, still stood too far apart, not sure how to bridge the distance, not sure what's acceptable or not, re-learning the way they're supposed to interact with each other.
But Oliver's eyes widen, and his mouth opens slightly, and then closes again without any words coming out.
“You do?” he says finally, after a moment has passed. Connor nods, reaching up to rub his neck awkwardly, unsurely.
“Um,” he says. “Sorry if I wasn't supposed to tell you? I've never told anyone I love them before.”
“You haven't?”
“Well, I've never been in love with someone before.”
Oliver still looks almost comically shocked – Connor would probably make fun of him in any other situation – and then he shakes his head, and mutters, “fuck it.”
Connor has time to be confused for exactly three seconds before Oliver leans forward and kisses him, cupping his cheeks in his hands and pressing his lips against Connor's hard.
Connor moves backwards slightly, a few steps, taken by surprise and then the world seems to come back into focus, and he returns the favour, moving closer, into Oliver and kissing him back, finally. It's been too long since Connor has kissed him, and it's been too long since anyone has kissed Connor like this, and Connor remembers the first time, learning how he kissed. He still hasn't forgotten.
“Fuck,” Connor mumbles in between kisses. “I missed you so much.”
“I missed you too,” Oliver kisses him again, and pulls away, and looks at him. His expression softens, and he looks unsure. “I love you, too. I forgot to say that.”
“You do?”
“Of course I do, how could you not get that?”
“It wasn't very obvious, I guess.”
“Yeah, I could say the same to you,” he grins, and Connor feels his chest tighten and he wonders why he's wasted two months not doing this. Oliver's shirt is short sleeved, and he can see the 00:00:00 markings on his wrist and he remembers how it all began.
He remembers the slight tugging sensation, the gravitation towards Oliver, that made him want to stay.
It's stronger now and Connor can't imagine leaving again, not even if he wanted to.
::
It's difficult, at first. Picking up where they left off, re-establishing the way their relationship works.
It's hard for Connor to get used to it, having a boyfriend. He's had one before, he knows that now, but he hadn't had to accept it. He'd never accepted it.
But it's nice, too. The feeling of security. There's always someone to text when he's bored at study group, someone to bitch about everyone in his class too. Connor had always dreaded the thought of waking up beside the same person every day but he thinks actually, maybe, he could get used to seeing Oliver every day.
It's not without struggles and sometimes Connor wants to pack his bags and leave. And sometimes they fight and sometimes Connor feels suffocated for no reason, so he goes out and drives. Oliver lets him go, and Connor remembers that a relationship, a soulmate, it's not a jail sentence, and fate strings aren't iron bars. He's here because he wants to be.
(And he never wants to leave.)
And it's scary in the same way as the dark: sleeping without the light on is hard at first, but it's better with someone by your side.