Chapter Text
December 1st
“You told him?”
“Yes.”
“Everything?”
No.
Not everything. How could he tell Gavin everything? He couldn’t even tell Hank everything. All Hank knows is that he walked in Sumo’s one morning with a bruise on his neck in the shape of a hand and it was enough for him to help Connor. He didn’t ask for any more information. It wasn’t necessary, and Connor would have lied anyways. He wouldn’t have been able to get the words out to explain how utterly weak and stupid he was.
He lied to Chloe at first, too. That it was just that one time. That it was enough for him to know to get out before anything else happened. It took him a year to tell her everything, and it took him three to tell Niles, but Gavin—
If he hadn’t been thrown back down the rabbit hole again, he might not have said anything at all.
Chloe reaches out to him, squeezes his hand a little bit and lets go at the sound of the bell behind them chiming. Back to work, with an apology written on her face and whispered under her lips, she turns around.
December 4th
Gavin just wishes he knew what happened to him.
Because all he wants right now is to hunt Eddie down and beat the shit out of him.
December 5th
“Any plans for Christmas?”
“Not a single one.”
“Would you like to come with me? To Seattle?”
“And meet your brother?”
“Yes.”
“I’d love to.”
December 9th
Connor pulls the shirt up over his head, setting it down on the bed and taking careful steps over to the mirror. It’s been a while since he looked at himself naked. He doesn’t want the reminder of the scars. He doesn’t want the image of them fresh and vibrant and there. If he keeps them buried deep, it is harder for them to resurface.
He traces them slowly, thinking about the ones on Gavin’s body, and then he thinks of how the ones on their hands reflect one another, and the ones in their heads clash. Scarred and bruised and beaten, the two of them. Maybe it’s why they fit so well together.
Trauma seeks trauma. It can never seem to let it die. Instead, it feeds off one another until the person is just a shell left behind.
The scars are not as bad as he remembers them being. They’re fainter, but they still exist and that’s enough for him to turn away from the mirror.
December 11th
Gavin kisses him again. More and more every time they see one another, which is almost every day now. Gavin is always over to visit Mocha, but after November, he had held his distance in the strangest of ways. Kisses on his forehead and holding his hand but not quite resting his hand on Connor’s waist anymore, not moving upwards underneath his shirt or leaving kisses on his neck.
It fell away, and it is a tentative rebuild. Connor can’t blame him. He’s thankful, even. It is difficult to explain how much he hates being treated like a broken thing but how much he feels like one. Gavin’s tenderness to him eases it away, it doesn’t enforce it.
December 14th
“Don’t look.”
He wouldn’t. He doesn’t need Connor to tell him that.
But they’re in the shower, and Connor’s hands are delicate on the skin of his back. Gavin feels lips press against his neck and his shoulder and the water spills across him. He doesn’t turn around and he keeps his eyes closed.
Connor’s fingers make their way across his scars, a silent question and a silent understanding in each and every touch. Most of them came from his father. Most of them came from protecting his brother, his sister.
Maybe someday he’ll tell Connor more about them. That his father was a cheating bastard and knocked up some woman and she didn’t want Gavin (because who would ever want him? She was smart enough to know what a terrible person he’d become even as an infant) and so he grew up pretending to be Elijah’s twin until people started to notice the little differences between him and the rest of the family.
“What does this mean?”
Connor’s hand is on his side, moving upwards, tracing the design there.
It feels so absolutely silly to say it out loud. And he could lie. He’s lied before. I just like flowers. They’re just pretty to me. I liked the design. I was too drunk that night to really think it through.
But he doesn’t want to lie to Connor, and he feels like he can trust him with this, even if it’s just one word.
“Growth.”
Breaking free.
Moving on.
Connor traces the shape of the tattoo that blooms across Gavin’s side. An explosion of flowers and petals, trapped inside of a triangle that has been shattered, little fragments falling off of one another.
Growth.
“When did you get it?”
“Started it a year ago. Went in every couple of weeks to get it finished.”
“It’s not done?”
“It is now.”
He nods, even though he knows Gavin can’t see him do it. A small gesture of understanding. He was getting this tattoo worked on and Connor never even knew. It’s such a strange secret, but the way Gavin had said the word growth made him understand why.
It’s ink. It’s blood. It’s deeply personal.
“I love you,” he says immediately. Please don’t forget that because I’m broken right now.
Gavin turns around, his eyes closed. He reaches up, feeling along Connor’s shoulders, touching the side of his neck. He smiles and leans forward, helping Gavin close the gap to kiss him. His eyes are closed. He didn’t even want to risk seeing something that Connor didn’t want him to see.
It makes him want to say it again and again. I love you I love you I love you.
A chant. A rhythm. A mantra.
No, he has not forgotten that they shouldn’t be together. He still thinks they would have been better if they waited, if they were in a better mental space before they got together, but if they spent time apart? If they took a break? They would never get back together again. It would be a line they couldn’t uncross.
He feels confused and lost and he knows the worst part of this is starting to fade away and he feels guilty for trying to cover all his bases, trying to explain away things.
Mostly, he is terrified.
December 18th
They sit across from each other in the diner like they always do, with their hands stretched across the table and holding onto one another.
This is his sister’s wife’s diner. It’s a fact he has always known. He and his sister don’t speak anymore. They don’t get along. They remind each other too much about what happened to them as kids. They used to lean on each other. Protect one another. But his scar isn’t just a reminder to himself, it’s a reminder for her and Elijah, too.
He wishes that right now, sitting across from Connor, his sister could come through the door and tease him about his boyfriend. He wishes that Elijah would cause some type of mayhem that he would be embarrassed about, but Connor would laugh at. He wishes he had pictures from his childhood to show Connor or stories that weren’t always lingering with a bitter aftertaste in his mouth.
“Are you alright?”
“I’m okay,” Gavin says, but he knows there are tears in his eyes and he feels guilty for it.
How desperately did he want Connor to open up to him, and he can’t even explain this?
And now that Connor has, he’s still kept so much of it hidden. Hypocrite.
“I just really love you.”
And there’s too much to unbury.
A strange feeling—
To reciprocate, to relate, to let Connor know he isn’t alone.
To feel selfish, to make this about him, to take away Connor’s pain and replace it with his own.
“You want to go home?”
Home.
“No,” he says. This is the only place where he can feel close to his sister. His only attachment to her. He doesn’t want to give that up yet tonight. He needs to stay here and pretend for a few minutes longer. “I’m okay.”
December 19th
He finds himself watching Gavin in the morning as they get ready for the day. Connor helps him make the bed, carefully flattening blankets and fixing the pillowcases and leaving a spot for Mocha to jump up and curl right between the two halves.
Connor hasn’t had two halves for a long time. It is weird to think of one side of the bed belonging to him and one side belonging to Gavin. He slept in the middle before. Tossing and turning against the pillows and staying up until his eyes were too tired to read another word of a book or pay attention to a video playing on his phone’s screen.
Do they work well together?
The question is creeping back in his head again, just when he thought he had gone a day without it. But he is overly aware of whether or not there is imbalance in their relationship. Gavin has told him secrets of his past but he hasn’t told them all.
And Connor?
It’s not like he’s said all of his either. But he knows he’s doing it for Gavin’s protection. Keep him from knowing the entirety of the terrible nature of his last relationship. Gavin might think of Connor as broken—and he likely does—but there is a difference between being tiny fragments that are almost dust and being large pieces that can be capable of getting glued back together again.
“Hey,” he whispers, because for some reason he can barely speak these days without feeling like he is too loud or saying too much, because he has already let loose too many secrets and everything else feels like it needs to be clamped down again. “I love you.”
Gavin turns, and he smiles but in a way that makes Connor feel absolutely guilty and terrified. It isn’t the same smile he had before. It is tainted by Connor’s trauma and sadness and now pity pulls it back from being like it used to.
“I love you, too.”
Connor nods and takes the last step forward, pulling Gavin close to his chest. He needs warmth right now. He needs to feel Gavin’s head rested against his. A reminder.
Do they work well together?
Yes. They do. They work wonderfully.
That doesn’t mean they should be together, and that is the real question, isn’t it? The one he actually keeps coming back together? Should we be together?
December 23rd
Gavin leaves a very long, very overly detailed note stuck to the fridge for Chloe when she comes to check up on Mocha while they’re gone. She already has her own keys, but Connor double checks that they work before Hank drives them to the airport. Their suitcases were packed the night before, a list of items carefully thought out and clothes carefully chosen.
On the plane, Gavin falls asleep against his shoulder. A book lays out on the tray in front of Connor, untouched because his head feels fuzzy and wrong this high up. A baby cries a few rows back and he lets out a small sigh, hoping it doesn’t disturb Gavin’s rest.
In a few hours, they’ll land. They’ll see Niles. They’ll say hello and Gavin will finally be introduced to him and Markus and maybe it will change everything and maybe it will change absolutely nothing.
But for now, Gavin sleeps. The baby cries. His head feels like it has been stuffed with cotton and shoved underwater.
Niles looks at Gavin as if he is an escaped serial killer. A little bit fearful, a little bit angry, a little bit like he could punch him.
“Niles, this is Gavin.” he says, motioning towards Gavin, as if he would be introducing anyone other than the boyfriend he said he was bringing along. “Gavin, Niles.”
“Nice to meet you,” Gavin says, but he doesn’t pull his hands from his pockets, and Niles doesn’t move his from his side. No handshake. Maybe for the best.
“Where’s Markus?” Connor asks, his heart is beating a little too fast in his chest right now. He wants it to calm down but it refuses.
“Keeping the car warm.”
He nods in response. Of course. Last time they had come back to the car and the three of them found themselves regretful of not having it warm to take away the chill of the evening. Niles learns from his mistakes, Connor supposes.
“T-the bags,” he says, realizing how quiet the three of them are being. He hasn’t even given Niles a hug yet like he normally does, but his body feels like someone has wrapped it tight with duct-tape and he has no ability to do anything but stand here like an idiot. “We should get the bags.”
The car ride back to Markus’ and Niles’ place is driven in utter silence besides for the quiet radio playing. Markus tries to make conversation but fails—Niles isn’t exactly a talker, and Connor is too busy focusing on how uncomfortable the situation is to do anything about fixing it.
He looks out towards the window, watching buildings go by when he feels Gavin’s hand touch his. He turns back, giving him a soft smile as their fingers interlace. Gavin gives them a soft squeeze, a careful nod. I’m trying, he’s saying.
Connor squeezes them back, offers the most genuine smile he can manage. I know.
Connor excuses him and Gavin to the guest room after an hour of strained conversation. Tired, he says, the time difference and the plane. It’s not even ten here, but Markus and Niles don’t argue his excuse, and it isn’t necessarily a lie either. He is exhausted. He worked earlier in the day and took the first flight they could feasibly manage right after to make the most of their time off.
Gavin doesn’t look when Connor changes his clothes. He drops his shirt onto the top of his bag, looking over towards the small mirror embedded in the armoire. Gavin on the bed with his face towards the wall, his phone in his hands but he’s not looking at it. Connor with his hands reaching for the shirt he plans to pull on next, his arm stretched out in a way that exposes the scars along his side.
He looks back, his voice shaking as he whispers, “Gavin?”
Gavin turns automatically, his eyes landing on Connor’s face for a moment before down at his bare torso, then away quickly again, “Sorry—”
“Gavin,” he repeats, stepping over to him. “I—”
“I didn’t mean to look.”
“It’s okay.”
Isn’t it? Isn’t it okay for Gavin to see his scars? Isn’t it alright that he sees them? Or is Connor being selfish, putting him in a situation like this, showing them to Gavin when he won’t be able to run away because they’re revolting and terrible and reveal something that Gavin had only heard in words and not seen written against his skin?
Gavin looks back slowly to his face and when Connor gives him a tiny nod he looks down towards the scars. Neat rows, methodically created. Starting at his ribs, moving downwards in almost expertly measured out places.
There are more, just below his waist band, following the line downwards to his mid-thigh. There are some on the insides of his legs when Eddie decided he liked that spot better. There are some on his right shoulder blade, too. They don’t continue down as far. Eddie never got the chance.
Most of them are weighted towards this side of his body. Sometimes they feel heavy, like they could topple him over. One wrong step and he might not be able to carry it anymore.
“He did this?”
Connor nods, and he can see in Gavin’s eyes how much he wants to kill him. It is the same rage he had the first time Connor confided into him, let that tiny bit of information loose that he might not be able to be the soft and loving boyfriend Gavin would want him to be. His fear of being unaffectionate in ways that Gavin might need. Gavin wanted to hurt him then. Now he wants to kill him.
“What hap—”
“I don’t know,” he says, before Gavin can finish the question. What happened to him? He doesn’t know. He doesn’t want to know. Eddie disappeared from his life and didn’t come back. Connor moved, he took more hours at Sumo’s, he tried to move on.
“Connor…”
“Hank hinted that he framed him with drugs,” he says quietly, turning away. “To spare me a trial. But I don’t know, otherwise.”
He has to accept this as the truth. That Hank wouldn’t lie to him. That the charges stuck. That Eddie is in prison right now, even if it’s a crime he didn’t commit. But Connor has never checked because he is too scared of the alternative. Knowing exactly what happened to Eddie will destroy whatever good he has now, unless that what is Eddie dead or in prison. But in the small off chance that Hank’s plan didn’t work and Connor did nothing to stop him from hurting someone else and finding that Eddie is with another someone else?
That would destroy everything.
Ignorance is bliss, he thinks. He prefers that.
He reaches for the shirt and he is halfway to pulling it up when he feels Gavin’s hand touching his wrist. Gentle, cold fingers leaving a track of frozen skin behind it before it settles on his spine. Connor stiffens for a moment, freezing in place at the thought of Gavin touching his scars, but he isn’t.
“What is this?”
He turns slowly, facing Gavin with a breath caught in his throat, “What?”
“You have a tattoo.”
“Yes—”
“You didn’t tell me.” There is a smile on Gavin’s face, an almost trace of actual amusement out of this, “I told you about mine, but you didn’t tell me you had one.”
Because he hadn’t thought he’d be showing Gavin his scars, and because he had associated Gavin so heavily with the first person to ever see them or feel them when it isn’t true. The person that tattooed the ones and zeroes against his spine had seen glimpses, no matter how well Connor tried to keep them hidden. He knows that the stranger likely thought they were from self-harm. Maybe that would be a preferable reason. If he had inflicted them upon himself, he would have no one in his life to fear and no one in his life to blame but himself.
“It’s nothing,” he whispers. “It’s just—”
“Binary code?”
He nods.
“What does it say?” he asks, then his face shifts and he shakes his head. “Sorry, you don’t have to tell me that, Con.”
He nods once more, but he wants to tell Gavin. His mouth opens for the meaning to slip out but he can’t quite manage to get there. He doesn’t understand why this is so hard. He doesn’t understand why one nightmare last month has changed so much of the two of them.
Gavin leans forward and presses a kiss against his cheek, turning back to the bed, “Seriously, Connor. You don’t have to tell me. Don’t worry about it, alright? Let’s get some rest.”
Connor lets out a breath, one that had been kept in his lungs for far too long. He pulls his replacement shirt over his head and finishes getting ready for bed. It is strange sleeping in this room with Gavin. When he lays down beside him in the dark, it makes his heart almost hurt at the thought of the future.
Before, he accepted that they might not be together forever. It is ridiculous to assume every relationship is going to end in marriage or family or dying in each other’s arms. But it wasn’t as if he didn’t hope for the best.
And now he can’t stop thinking that eventually the two of them will break apart, and the likelihood of that happening when they are old and gray is too difficult to really consider a possibility. In a few years, he might be back in this apartment visiting his brother and sleeping on this bed and unable to think of this exact moment.
The future is a heavy weight and it is crushing his ribs and his lungs and he can’t breathe properly anymore.
“I love you,” he says, because he does. Because as much as the question of how or when or if they will break up doesn’t really matter. He loves Gavin. Gavin loves him. It isn’t enough to solve their problems and it isn’t enough to get the terror of loneliness and trauma from his head but it is enough for him to kiss Gavin and close his eyes for some much needed sleep.
December 24th
Morning isn’t any better. Niles and Markus are both still strange to be around. Niles is just… strange. He is like a weird version of Connor. Quieter and more serious. Gavin caught him smiling once, when he first woke up and left the bedroom and he was in the kitchen with Markus, a mug held against his chest and looking towards Markus. They look happy. Exceptionally so. Gavin finds himself trying to see more of their small moments like that. When they think Gavin isn’t there or isn’t looking. When they hold hands or Markus leans close to him and whispers something that him and Connor can’t hear.
Maybe this would be easier if him and Connor weren’t in such a strange place.
“Are you ready?” Connor asks, leaning against the door frame. Niles and Markus have already left hours ago, leaving the second set of car keys for them.
Gavin nods, stepping across the space and taking Connor’s hand. All he wants to do is hold Connor’s hand. Like if he lets it go for too long Connor will drift away from him. Like he needs a reminder that the two of them are together.
“Yeah, let’s go.”
They arrive at the theatre barely on time and are shown to their seats quickly. Connor holds a program in his hands, nervously opening and closing it, looking through the list of cast and orchestra members before turning his attention back to the stage.
Gavin wants to reach out and stop his hands from shaking. Still the little bit of nerves bundled up in his stomach.
“Are you alright?” he asks, even though he knows Connor isn’t. But asking why Connor is upset right now seems like an awful alternative.
“I’ve never—” he pauses and bites his lip, laughing a little. “I’ve never heard Markus or Niles play before. In an actual performance like this, I mean. This is… different than high school recitals.”
Gavin nods, as if he understands, but he doesn’t. His fingers were broken when he refused to continue his piano lessons. He never associated the keys or the sound of it with that moment, because it was so heavily focused on so many other things. It would have happened eventually. He has plenty of broken bones in his body to know that.
He opens his mouth to say something, but the lights above them flicker and the crowd falls silent. Gavin leans back in his seat and the Nutcracker begins.
It happens when a blizzard of girls dressed like snowflakes are doing pirouettes and arabesques across the stage. Clara and her partner are in the middle of them, him holding her up like she weighs nothing and she looks on with a smile, dazzled by the snowflakes dance.
Gavin reaches over and holds his hand, tight. A grip that is different from before, but just as reassuring. There is something about the moment that makes Connor look away from the stage and towards Gavin. The Nutcracker plays on, the flutes and piano and other instruments continuing their songs, the ballet dancers bourée and the curtain comes down, hiding them from view. But Connor is hit with that question again:
Should they be together?
He is starting to annoy himself with his inability to stick with an answer. If he asked himself this two months ago he would have told himself yes, absolutely. Because they are good together. Because they love each other. Because Gavin knows when to hold his hand and help ease some of whatever lingering stress is in his heart. He will never be able to cure it—that would be impossible—but he helps.
And Connor doesn’t love him because he gets rid of some of his nerves or he staves off some of the bad dreams or that he didn’t look at Connor like he was a disgusting mutilated human being when he saw those scars. He loves him because Gavin is a good person. Despite the past fighting, despite the violence, he has overcome it. He has become a person who is kind and sweet and soft. He is not the person with the underlying anger and the tendency towards hatred that he thought he was in the beginning.
But—
Should they be together?
“You played incredibly,” Connor says, pulling Niles into a tight hug. “I wish I could come to more of your performances.”
“I know.” Niles replies quietly. He hugs him back, too, tighter than he ever has, as if he’s making up for all their time lost. The performances Connor has missed, the hugs that they haven’t had, the years they have gone without seeing and telling each other absolutely everything.
“Next year,” he says, staying here and lingering in Nile’s arms, not quite done hugging his brother yet. “I’ll come back.”
“And Gavin? Will he come too?”
Connor looks over Niles shoulder to where Markus and Gavin stand a few yards away, both with their eyes on their phones or the cement sidewalk. Their conversation is drowned out by the chatter of the crowd leaving the theatre, and for that Connor is grateful. Gavin won’t hear or see the hesitation in him responding to this question.
But Niles does.
“Connor?”
He pulls back and smiles, nodding, “Of course.”
“Connor—”
“It’s not important. Let’s not think about anything, alright? Tomorrow is Christmas.”
“Hey,” Niles says, reaching out and stopping him from walking away. “Tell me.”
A demand, not a question. Not even a terribly veiled suggestion.
Tell me.
But he can’t. It’s too big of a topic to bring up out here, and there is too much chance for Gavin to overhear it. Even if they were at the apartment and Gavin was asleep, there is still too much of a chance. Of a risk.
“Did he hurt you?”
“No. Never. He wouldn’t.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
Connor breathes in a sigh but it comes back out shaking with a single word, “Me.”
“I don’t understand.”
No. Of course he doesn’t.
“Do you love him?”
“Of course.”
“But you…”
“I don’t know,” he says, shaking his head. “I’m sorry. We shouldn’t… discuss this in public.”
We shouldn’t discuss this at all.
“Right,” Niles says with a nod, glancing back to the other two. “You two seem like a good pair. Markus thinks so, too. But you should talk to Gavin about this. He’s your boyfriend. He’s the other half of this situation. I think he should be included in the discussion.”
“Instead of you?”
Niles gives him a small smile and a nod, “Yes, instead of me. Although, I would appreciate it if we stopped keeping secrets.”
He offers his brother a smile and forces the subject to change. They should head back to the apartment. Get some rest. Tomorrow is Christmas. They shouldn’t spend Christmas Eve thinking about their pasts.
December 25th
They pass out their presents in the morning. They’re too old to act like children on Christmas morning and leap up and down with the joy of the holiday but they’re not too old to allow themselves to sleep in and waste the day away.
Connor is given an apron with a dog face printed on it, a cookbook filled with meals that are something other than pastries and baked goods, and a hoodie like Gavin’s. Pale blue, the ears dog instead of cats. He likes the hoodie the most. They can match now.
Gavin opens boxes with a new leather jacket with faded red details, a poetry book that utilizes expletives in the prettiest (and most amusing) ways it can manage, and a coffee mug designed to resemble a cat. Black instead of soft pale pink like the one Chloe has.
Markus makes rolls for dinner and Connor nudges Gavin towards the kitchen, telling him to help. He stays with them, helping break the barrier between the two. Markus tells a joke and Connor laughs and he’s surprised to find when he glances over to Gavin that he’s stifling one, too. The ice is thawing. It’s a shame they will have to leave soon. He’d like this to last.
Next year.
Next year they will come back and the friendship will have already started.
December 26th
They say their farewells and check in their luggage before boarding the plane. Both of them are tired and exhausted and Connor falls asleep against Gavin’s shoulder despite never being able to do so before. Gavin is the one to stay awake, to push up the plastic cover in front of the window and look through to the clouds and darkness outside.
He didn’t expect to want to stay so much. He thought the entire trip was going to end with him being relieved about going home and feeling guilty that Connor would want to stay behind with his brother and Markus. But he grew to like the two of them. Enough that he wouldn’t have minded an extra day or week there. Maybe not enough to call them friends, but enough that he didn’t feel weird giving the two of them a wave and a half smile as they left, and they made Connor laugh and smile in a way that he hasn’t in a while. Real and unadulterated fun.
At least he gets to go home and see Mocha. He’ll be able to sit in a quiet apartment alone with Connor and kiss him without worrying about being watched and judged by Niles, which he’s sure he was. If they had stayed one more night Gavin is positive he would have had a chat with Niles about how he shouldn’t hurt Connor.
He wonders if Elijah or his sister would have that conversation with Connor if they were in his life.
Maybe not, because Gavin is clearly the one that is going to fuck this up in the end. He always is.
They return to the apartment and set their bags down. Gavin walks over to Mocha and picks her up from the floor, smothering her in kisses against the top of her head before letting Connor take her from his hands. He has his eyes closed, resting her against his shoulder like a baby. There is a small smile of contentment on his lips before he sets her back down again.
“Bed?” he asks in that quiet voice of his.
“Bed.” Gavin agrees, taking his hand and letting Connor pull him towards the room.
They collapse against the mattress and don’t even bother changing their clothes. They have only enough energy to kick their shoes off and curl up on their proper sides and let out a small laugh when Mocha nuzzles her way between the two of them.
December 28th
Connor gets home before Gavin on most days, but today is different. The wait between three and five in the afternoon has never felt like such an excruciating long time and he discovers he is useless to try and pass it. He attempts to read a book but can’t focus on the words. He finds an audiobook on his phone and plays it but realizes he isn’t focusing on what is being spoken to him. He turns the television on and watches the people move but none of their actions sink into his head.
When the door finally opens he jumps upwards, Mocha looking over at him suspiciously from her side of the couch as Gavin steps into the apartment.
“Hey—”
“I need to talk to you.”
Gavin pauses, setting his bag down slowly, shedding his coat with cautious movements. He is trying to stretch out this moment. Keep their relationship as it is for the few seconds between now and whatever Connor is going to tell him.
“Okay,” he says, hanging his coat up. “Let’s talk.”
The words are stuck. He sorts through them while Gavin kicks off his shoes, takes Mocha from the couch and steals her spot so he can sit beside Connor. Still, there is distance between them. One seat. Not unusual. They aren’t constantly in contact, but right now it feels wrong.
“I don’t want to break up with you,” Connor says, testing the words out. He finds he can’t look at Gavin’s face right now. If he does, he won’t be able to say everything he needs to. “I love you. More than anything. I don’t want to lose you.”
“Connor…”
Gavin trails off and he doesn’t reply straight away. They just sit in silence while Connor tries to make sense of the mess in his head. It all makes sense until he needs to say the words out loud and then they seem to jumble themselves up and twist their way around one another.
“I love you,” he repeats. “And I’m just terrified that—”
That Eddie was right. No one is ever going to love Connor properly. Especially after Eddie destroyed him.
Should they be together?
His heart and his head say yes but there is a third shadow that exists within him, the scars on his body constantly screaming no.
“What?” the question is whispered, quiet between them. The sun is setting outside the window, the winter sending them into a dark spiral in this living room.
“I’m scared that this isn’t going to last.”
Isn’t his trauma resurfacing a sign of that? Isn’t the nightmare and the crying and the struggling every day a sign of that? That they are falling apart and love can’t fix anything and Eddie was right.
“Connor,” Gavin says, moving closer to him, reaching for his hands only for one of them to leave it to rest against his cheek. “So am I, but I told you before, remember? I’m going to marry you someday.”
He laughs a little and it catches him off guard. It catches Gavin off guard, too.
“You think we’ll be together forever?”
“I want to be. I hope so,” he replies, with a slight shrug. “I… The future is a scary place. We don’t have to be thinking of what’s going to happen with the two of us, alright? We can take this one step at a time. One day or week or month at a time. Looking for what we’ll be like in forty years is…”
“Ridiculous?”
“Yeah,” he says. “We aren’t going to be the same people now as we are then. There isn’t a use in trying to pretend we’ll know what we’ll be up to. But that’s… that’s not all, is it?”
“No.”
Gavin nods, like he understands. Maybe he does. He has his own problems. He just hasn’t opened up about them as much because it never put their relationship in such a delicate position. At least, not quite like this.
“I want you to feel comfortable telling me anything,” he says quietly. “But I don’t want to force you to do anything.”
“I know.”
“Do you… also know I can’t help if I don’t know?”
It is his turn to nod and he looks away once more. Gavin’s hand at his cheek falls down and holds onto Connor’s hand carefully.
“Eddie always told me I wasn’t good enough,” he says. He is forcing the words out and they are painful because he doesn’t want to say them, because they still strike true. But Gavin is right. He needs to know. He needs to know everything. “When I argued with him once, he told me he was the only one that could ever love me.”
“That’s not true.”
“I know. But I still—” he sighs. “I feel like… I don’t know. I just… I don’t know what to do.”
“Do you want space?”
No, because space means being away from Gavin and he isn’t obsessively clingy, but space isn’t just a codeword for them not seeing each other everyday. It’s a codeword for break up. He doesn’t want to break up.
“I think I need therapy.”
“Okay. I’ll help you find a therapist, if that’s what you’d like.”
“Just like that?”
He doesn’t know why he expected Gavin to say something else. To insist that Connor wouldn’t need one or something. To fight it somehow. He doesn’t know why he assumed the worst in him, if that could be considered the worst.
“Just like that.”
Connor smiles and nods and he knows he’s crying now but he leans forward and hugs Gavin and tightens his arms as much as he can because he feels like he might truly fall apart right now. He has been to a therapist before and it helped and he stopped because Sumo’s got busier and there wasn’t enough time. Before he just assumed everything was fine and okay. He didn’t have a boyfriend, he didn’t have many friends. He was perfectly content with his life, even with the occasional nightmares and crying jags.
And then Gavin showed up.
And he made it all wonderful and happy and pretty, but the happiest times are always followed by the worst.
He wasn’t prepared for this.
December 29th
“Gavin?”
“Hmm?”
“It says ‘alive.’”
“What does?”
“My tattoo. The binary code translates to ‘alive.’ I thought you should know.”
December 31st
“Happy almost New Year.” Gavin says, leaning down to press a kiss against Connor’s lips.
“Happy almost New Year.”
He doesn’t know that Connor has changed the clocks in the kitchen and the living room to be thirty minutes fast. They need their rest and Connor knows Gavin would like to make the both of them stay up for the midnight kiss. He’s okay with that. He looks forward to it. Their fake New Year will be in two minutes. A tiny lie, but they are better off this way. It gives them an extra thirty minutes of sleep for tomorrow morning when they will both wake up before the sun is even deciding to rise again.
The two of them have spent the last couple of days looking into different therapists in their area. Gavin, somewhere along the way, had left the idea up in the air about maybe looking for two on opposite sides of the city. He had his hand up to his face, half hiding his scar. Two. Because Gavin is in need of this help just as much as Connor is.
There are some things that Connor doesn’t know about Gavin and there are things Gavin doesn’t know about Connor. They still have so many secrets from each other, but it doesn’t mean they’ll stay that way.
Someday, Gavin will tell Connor why he left the DPD. Someday, Connor will tell Gavin all the devastating details of his parent’s death. Maybe he will learn more about Gavin’s brother and maybe Niles will be there to tell the embarrassing stories of Connor’s past that he’d never let Gavin know on his own.
They have time.
And when they whisper I love you back and forth as the clock strikes fake midnight, he knows it matters. He knows Gavin means it. He knows it isn’t disfigured with the addition of a body part. Connor isn’t being reduced to what he’s good for in bed, what his appearance is, how well his body bleeds and bruises and scars for a man to wonder at the damage he’s caused.
Gavin just loves him.
He’s never felt that before, not besides with Niles. And this is a different kind of love. It is still pure and happy but it isn’t bonded by sibling and blood.
He hopes that Gavin feels the same. That he knows how much Connor truly loves him. All of his little quirks. The coffee and the cats and the horror movies. His arrogance and his stubbornness and his sarcasm. His affection and his kindness and his silly texts.
Should they be together?
Yes.
Absolutely.
Most certainly.
When they head inside, Connor takes the quarter from his pocket before changing into his clothes for bed. He turns it over in his hands, feeling the ridges like he always does, passing his thumb over the imprint of the face. He sets it down carefully on the dresser next to his phone and his wallet. Tomorrow it will be back in his pocket where it belongs.
Gavin never did properly tip him like he promised. It has always officially been this quarter.
But he has given Connor a thousand kisses and held his hand hundreds of times and has made him smile every day, even when he was struggling to find a reason for it. That, he thinks, is worth more than whatever tip he could give him.
three years ago
December 20th
It was easier this time than before. Either because he’s a stranger or because she’s done it once before, she isn’t really sure. But it isn’t difficult to lure a man to her apartment. And it isn’t difficult to tie him up, to gag him, to blindfold him.
Men are stupid. They get distracted by breasts and perfume and eye lashes. They think ropes and ball-gags are sexy instead of something they should be afraid of. Add a little giggle and a smile and a false twinkle in her eye and they will do anything she asks of them.
Men are stupid.
She slips the knife from where it’s hidden, and she drives it into his chest again and again and again and again. She hasn’t quite got the anger out from the last one and she has more now.
This man—this despicable monster—hurt Connor. He destroyed him. He ruined everything.
He deserves to die.
She showers afterwards. Flushes all the evidence down the drain. The blood swirls around her feet and she watches it disappear. Waits until it runs clear for twenty minutes before she trusts the evidence is as gone as it will get. Her clothes are burning the fireplace when she makes the call. Hank will be here in thirty minutes. He’ll help clean up the rest.
And until then she will repeat what he told her last year like a mantra:
He deserved it. He deserved something more painful, too. But he deserved it.
And Connor cannot find out.
Connor. Cannot. Find. Out.
It will be terrible and terrifying for him to live the rest of his life thinking Eddie will pop back up again but he cannot know. It is better this way. He is better off this way.
Does it matter if she is now a murderer? If she is one step away from being a serial killer? Chloe is helping, isn’t she?