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Connor isn’t the kind of person who gets speechless over hot guys in bars. He’s usually the guy who makes the other guys speechless from the way he leans over to them like he’s going to tell them all his secrets, or the way his fingers hook around the loops on their jeans as he mutters innuendo in their ear and pulls them closer, too close. He makes them want him with his face, his voice, his body. He’s learnt how to make other guys weak at the knees. Connor isn’t the one that is weak or helpless anymore. He’s top of the class at law school, he’s slept with more guys than he can count and he can fuck anyone over in any way now and come out relatively unscathed.
But across the room is Oliver Hampton. The Oliver Hampton, whose face has been at the back of his mind for so long. Oh, God. He’s going to have to go back almost ten years to explain why that face raises a whole load of emotions that he’s put off dealing with for most of his life.
.
Coming out should not be so difficult for a seemingly confident guy with such a loving family. Connor is kind of confused as to why he’s so scared when he knows that his family are going to accept him, knows that they probably won’t even see it as an issue. He’s not even sure why his hands are shaking or why he feels sick whenever he even considers breaching the topic with his parents or sister. He spends hours locked in his room on the internet searching for coming out stories, advice on websites that he should surely view uncredible after realising that the entire page is written in Comic Sans. It’s easier, somehow, to listen to hundreds of tales of acceptance and rejection, tears and smiles, hugs and disownment than to own up to the very real voice inside of him that has been telling him for years that he’s gay. None of the stories he comes across really stick with him until he’s on YouTube and he’s clicking through Coming Out videos, countless gay boys with hundreds of thousands of subscribers already, the occasional girl or bisexual person crossing his screen. He feels like each one is the same until he clicks on a video entitled “Coming Out” by a user called theITguy.
The guy could only be a couple of years older than him, sixteen or seventeen at the most. He’s Filipino and is wearing glasses coupled with an awkward smile that really suits him. Scrolling down, Connor sees that the guy has around three thousand subscribers and somehow that makes him feel less intimidated than when he was watching videos by the most popular YouTubers around.
“Hey, this is Oliver Hampton,” the guy begins and Connor pushes his headphones in further and turns up the volume on his laptop. “This is kind of a different video today but it’s something that’s been coming for a long time. I don’t r-really know how many of you are going to care or how many are going to unsubscribe after this but we’ve had this thing going for a while now and I want to be open about who I am. Pretending isn’t enough for me anymore.” His voice is audibly shaky, his eyes too focused on the camera for him to be anything but terrified. Connor really feels for the guy, looks at him and sees himself looking back. Oliver takes a deep breath before continuing. “I’m gay. Like, really gay. W-wow.” He stutters and Connor can’t help but think how adorable it is. “It feels so incredible to say it out loud. I mean, this isn’t the first time but when I upload this… I mean, it’ll be out there for anyone to see. But I want that, um, I really want that now. I’ve watched so many of these videos and every time I’ve thought, hey, why isn’t that me yet? Um. So now it is. I guess I should tell you how I came out to everyone else. It started with… of course it started with my Mom.”
Connor watches the video to the end as Oliver talks about how his parents hugged and cried with him and helped him tell each of his siblings in turn. He listens to Oliver as he recounts coming out to a friend who didn’t take it well but how now they’re okay with it and that they apologise for it all the time. When the video ends, he’s almost disappointed. It’s as though he’s been let into a life and then abruptly shut out as the video ends and the screen goes dark. Connor takes a deep breath and closes his laptop, gets out of his chair and walks down the stairs to find his parents.
When he tells them that he’s gay there are tears and smiles and hugs and “I love you”s and reassurance and Connor keeps thinking back to Oliver, or theITguy as he styles himself and he silently says thank you to a guy he’s sure he’ll never meet.
A few hours later, Connor goes up to his room to get ready for bed. He reopens his laptop and it’s still on the video. He presses replay and he feels so much more relaxed watching it this time: it’s less like a secret. He unplugs the headphones and watches the video with audio coming out for anyone to hear. When it’s over he minimises the video, presses subscribe to the channel and closes his browser. He goes to sleep with a smile on his face and a face on his mind.
Connor Walsh is fourteen years old when someone who doesn’t even know who he is gives him the courage to do something wonderful. He’s twenty-four when he has the chance to do something wonderful back.
.
It takes a few moments to pluck up the courage and to push down the images of a younger Oliver telling Connor about how he came out to his mother. Approaching Oliver in the bar is easier than he thought it would be. He’s surprisingly, scarily nervous but he manages to hide it pretty well, playing the guy he always plays when he’s looking to pick someone up. He’s flirting and flashing a charming smile Oliver’s way, leaning conspiratorily towards the older man until he gets the hint. It doesn’t take much for him to persuade Oliver to take him back to his apartment and then it isn’t long before Connor has Oliver pinned up against the door, kissing him like he’s trying to take something away and Oliver certainly doesn’t seem like he wants to put up a fight. Connor grins against the older man’s face as he feels something hard rubbing against his thigh.
“Bedroom?” he asks, half a laugh in his voice, eyeing Oliver’s crotch and feeling heat rush through his body at the wanting look in Oliver’s eyes.
There’s no verbal response but then Oliver is leading the way and clothes are stripped and hands are wandering more than before. Oliver is splayed across the bed with Connor on top of him, having thrown him there. Oliver is compliant and vocal and it’s just like Connor had imagined he would be.
He’s pounding into Oliver, pinning his hands up against the headboard and taking in the wonderful feeling of being with him when he wonders if he should have mentioned that he recognises Oliver from YouTube. It’s probably incredibly creepy that he isn’t mentioning it, like it’s something to hide and maybe it is. He wouldn’t exactly call it an obsession but he was pretty gone on Oliver for a lot of his teenage years. The thought is unsettling for the brief period of time it is allowed to settle in his mind before touch and taste and Oliver take over Connor’s mind, plunging everything else into a dark corner that Connor ignores until he’s finished and leaves the building, ignoring the silent plea in Oliver’s eyes for him to stay.
Staying would make it more creepy, right? Plus, Connor doesn’t do sleepovers, not even with guys like Oliver. Not even with guys he’s secretly loved for years.
He doesn’t linger outside the apartment or feel a moment of hesitation, wondering if he should just go back inside. He definitely doesn’t do that.
.
The first time YouTube tells Connor that theITguy has uploaded a new video is a week after he came out to his parents. A week after an awkwardly smiling guy invaded his life and gave him the courage to do what he’d been wanting to do for so long. Connor’s not entirely sure why he hit subscribe on the channel after watching only one video but the memory of Oliver’s face has been on the back of his mind for a while and there’s no hesitation before he follows the link to watch the video.
It’s just some cheesy thing about how socially awkward he is and from any other YouTuber Connor would dismiss it as old and predictable and banal but there’s something about the way Oliver sometimes laughs at his own jokes and the way his eyes light up when he’s talking about his friends and the stuttered, unscripted bits that somehow always make it in there after editing…
Okay, so Connor stays up all night watching every video Oliver has ever uploaded to his channel. It’s not weird, okay, it’s just… research. Yeah. He finds that the Coming Out video was posted a couple of months back and that Oliver has done more videos talking about his sexuality since and it’s so comforting to hear what he’s going through coming from the mouth of a stranger, even if all the details aren’t the same. Connor isn’t sure why he’s attached himself to a gay kid on YouTube but he definitely isn’t in a situation where he wants to pull himself away.
There’s a video where Oliver mentions a guy he has a crush on and he only lingers on the topic for exactly twenty-three seconds which is a fact that Connor wouldn’t know if he didn’t keep replaying the moment and wondering who the guy might be and feeling inexplicably jealous.
TheITguy uploads videos every Monday and every Monday after school Connor is on his laptop watching the video and commenting something in the hope that one day he might get a reply.
.
Turns out that sleeping with someone who works in IT comes in really handy when you’re trying to crack a case that would be much more easily solved if only you could hack into some rich old lady’s computer. It only makes Connor more attracted to Oliver, the way that his brow furrows in concentration as he types strings of letters and symbols that are completely nonsensical to Connor but that somehow open up a world of possibilities for the case.
Connor takes his time with Oliver that night, slow kisses across his body and lingering fingers that bring out the most gorgeous, breathy moans from the most gorgeous, nerdy guy. It feels different, it feels special. It feels like what Connor’s been looking for all these years.
And it feels like a lie not telling Oliver that this isn’t the first time he’s spent hours staring into those eyes.
.
Connor doesn’t want to open the video that YouTube has just emailed him about. He doesn’t want to press the play button as it appears on his screen and his doesn’t want to watch this guy sitting next to Oliver claiming to be his boyfriend. Okay, so he’s happy for him, of course he’s happy for the only guy he’s ever watched religiously on YouTube, because of course you’re happy when your favourites are happy but there’s also that voice in the back of his mind that says what about me?
He knows that it’s just that he’s looking for someone who can be the same as him, he knows that it’s because there don’t seem to be any other gay kids in his school or his town or within what seems like a thousand miles of him. He’s formed a stupid attachment with some stupid YouTuber and it’s stupid stupid stupid because he knows that nothing is ever going to come of it. The thing is that Connor is lonely and he doesn’t realise it until he sees Oliver being oh so very not lonely.
Next week Connor kisses a guy for the first time and he gets wrapped up in the world of Aiden Walker and is able to forget about Oliver for a while, only catching up on his videos once every couple of weeks, if that. Aiden teaches Connor how to kiss and how to fuck and how to do that thing with his tongue that he’s used on most guys since. Aiden also kind of definitely breaks Connor’s heart six months later and through that teaches him how to cut off emotions and love to make life and sex easier.
As if he knows, Oliver posts a video entitled “How To Get Over Someone Breaking Your Heart.” The two of them are single again and it seems like fate or hopefully something less cliche. Connor hates the thought and knows that if it were anyone else he’d mock them mercilessly for it but it makes him smile again, for a while.
Connor realises then that he’s been watching Oliver’s videos for almost three years. He’s sixteen and a half and he’s had his heart broken by a boy who never really wanted a relationship with him and had his courage strengthened by a boy who has never had any kind of relationship with him.
He realises how much he’s changed in the time since he first clicked on a video called “Coming Out”, how much his life has changed. He’s openly gay now at his school and even though the murmurs and comments sometimes get way too much to handle, he’s happier this way. He’s kissed a guy, he’s had a relationship - even though he thought it was more than Aiden ever did - and he’s nothing like the scared, scrawny fourteen year old boy he was before.
Connor used to be more idealistic about relationships. He dreamed of one day making Oliver his boyfriend but Aiden… Aiden has changed things for him.
Maybe relationships aren’t all they’re cracked out to be. From where Connor’s standing, it looks a lot less painful and a lot easier to be the one doing the hurting rather than the one left behind with the broken heart.
It’s not a nice philosophy, but until he’s twenty-four it seems like an easier one. Until he meets someone that makes him feel otherwise.
He stops watching Oliver’s videos but he keeps getting alerts and doesn’t have the heart to unsubscribe from them. A couple of years later he realises that the alerts have stopped and only then does Connor let himself go back and watch every single video.
.
“There’s something I need to tell you.” Connor says one night when they’re on the couch eating take-out and sharing a bottle of wine. There’s something scarily domestic about it and Connor feels like it’s the time for him to tell Oliver that he kind of knows him already. If it’s going to go further, if it’s going to be real - and, God, that’s something Connor hasn’t thought about in a long time - everything has to be the truth.
Sleeping together turned into hacking which turned into payment in food and wine and staying over and sitting on the couch watching tv shows Connor would have hated himself for watching otherwise and all together it turned into the two of them being more than just two guys who sleep together. More like friends. More like… Connor isn’t going to say it yet.
“Yeah?” Oliver says, nonplussed by the statement.
Connor takes a deep breath, deciding to just go straight into it. “I used to watch your YouTube videos.”
There’s a pause and Oliver stares straight ahead as though he hasn’t quite taken it in before turning in slow-motion, almost comically to face Connor.
“Uh.” is the only sound Oliver seems to be able to make. His face is frozen and Connor isn’t sure whether or not to start freaking out.
“I was going to tell you but… I didn’t want to come off as creepy and I probably come off as more creepy now but I need to tell you that I watched your Coming Out video and you’re the reason I came out at all and sometimes when I didn’t really see the point anymore your videos somehow always had the right thing to say.” Connor stops. He isn’t good enough with emotions to be saying all this.
“Uh.” Oliver says again. “Wow, okay.”
“You’re creeped out.” Connor says, resignation slipping into his voice. He grabs his phone, looks over his shoulder at the door that would be a respite in any other apartment belonging to any other guy.
“No, I-I’m flattered.” Oliver stutters. “Honestly, I’d almost forgotten about the whole thing.”
“Yeah, you stopped uploading.” Connor says.
“Work was more important.” Oliver says. “Paid better, you know?”
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.” Connor says.
“I get why you didn’t. It’s, uh, a little weird but…”
“You’ll manage?” Connor asks, a teasing twinkle in his eye.
Oliver stares at him for a second, as though he’s thinking about something else. “Oh, God. You saw everything.”
“Yep.”
“You saw my douchey boyfriend?”
“He was definitely a douche.”
“You saw my attempt at singing Beyonce?”
“For the record, I thought it was pretty good.”
“You saw my cinnamon challenge?”
“No comment.”
“God.”
“You looked hot.”
“Fuck you.”
They’re laughing about it within minutes; Connor wonders why he didn’t tell Oliver sooner.
.
A couple of days later Oliver asks a question.
“Hey, would you still have hit on me in that bar if you hadn’t seen me on YouTube first?”
Connor smiles. “Of course. I wouldn’t miss out on a hot guy like you for the world.”
“I knew it!” Oliver exclaims. “You only like me for my body. You know we’d make the cutest babies.”
Connor doesn’t exactly disprove that theory by ravishing him right there on the sofa for hours.
.
A couple of months later after a fight that turns into the most intense sex Connor has ever had they stop pretending that they’re not in a relationship and finally make it official. It’s Connor’s idea that they make a Boyfriend Tag video to upload on theITguy to see if Oliver still has any active subscribers.
(He does. They fangirl wildly in the comments section and there’s art on the internet within hours.)
.
“How did you meet?” Oliver reads the question off his phone, a smile on his face. Connor can tell from the look on his boyfriend's face that he still doesn't quite believe they're doing this.
Connor sighs dramatically. “Well, technically I met him first and fell in love with him through watching his YouTube channel at the age of fourteen. Which I neglected to tell him until about a month into our relationship.” He pauses and smiles at his boyfriend. “But he met me in a bar and was so swept away by my handsomeness that he hasn’t been able to get away from me since.”
“Don’t be a bitch.” Oliver teases, putting his head on Connor’s shoulder. “Okay, camera off now. Viewers away. You’re all mine.”
No objections are raised.