Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Wednesday the 21st

So this was it. Today was the day. Connor lay in his childhood bed, staring at the ceiling, wondering what the actual fuck was going to happen. Should he meet Evan at the airport? Dear god, no. They hadn’t discussed anything like that. Also, Evan’s mom was meeting him at the airport, so what the fuck would Connor be doing there besides third wheeling and making everything awkward? Was it going to be awkward no matter what he did? Of course, it was going to be awkward.

His bed was too cold. It suddenly came to mind that he probably didn’t need to worry about that, because he’d be sleeping over at Evan’s soon, and maybe every night. Or, at least, he thought he’d discussed that with Evan at some point. The stone cold terror that went through him at the thought made him actually shiver. He pulled the covers up toward his chin, tucking his feet close together, and tried to go through what had happened.

It had been almost two weeks. Fourteen days. He had helped Evan, then yelled at him, then started to get too excited about the possibility of getting back together, and then had begun the alternating merry-go-round: I love you, I hate you. Relief, terror.

When he got up to meditate, he could feel his heart tugging, weighing him down, like it was going to obey gravity and just rip itself string by string, vein by vein, out of his chest, and fall out onto the floor. He could hardly focus on his breath, just begging himself not to start this terrible process of judging and eviscerating Evan. He tried to remind himself what it was like when Evan would criticize him out of love, or anxiety, tried to remember how bad that felt, to vow that he wouldn’t turn around and do it to Evan now that he had the chance.

His therapist sometimes talked about replacing negative thoughts: “If you have a negative thought about this situation, what is the different thought you want to have instead?” He always found it kind of stupid, because if he were really able to think differently, to see things in a way that wasn’t so emotionally charged, and black and white, didn’t she think that he’d do it? Just saying, “I wish I didn’t hate Evan” or “I wish I didn’t think he ruined my life” wasn’t going to change what he actually thought. Or, at least that’s what he’d thought when he’d started.

Now, he realized it was less about wanting to believe some pie in the sky idea, and more about trying to believe something that would literally change his life. When he believed Evan had ruined his life, he saw no reason to live, so he had to start believing something else for his own fucking health.

That’s what he had to do now, he thought as he pulled a tarot card. He needed to believe that Evan wasn’t all bad, that things weren’t over, if he ever wanted a shot at getting what he really desired. If he kept this attitude up, this constant fear of whether Evan was acting correctly, this incessant desire for him to be the perfect partner, there was no question about it—the whole thing would be over before it started.

The card was the page of cups. Yeah. Fitting. That little fish in the cup represented emotional, intuitive, or creative surprises that came out of nowhere. You couldn’t exactly expect them, or train them, or try to get them to be just so. You had to take them as they came, appreciate them exactly how they appeared, and work with whatever they presented. 

God, Connor hated when the tarot cards actually seemed to give good life advice. One of his old therapists had told him to use them because he needed a sense of spirituality, or being one with the universal spirit of life, or some shit, and he’d always hated the concept that it was good to have a spirituality or to look for answers outside himself at all, but he’d just never stopped pulling them, despite the fact that he’d long since left New York and found a better therapist.

So, the page of cups it was, then. He guessed Evan was just a fish in a cup.

+

The phone call came around four in the afternoon, and Connor felt bile creeping up his throat almost immediately. Evan was going to want to see him. He was going to see Evan. His stomach was churning, and his legs were bouncing anxiously, and his throat was tightening, and it took just about all he had to actually answer the phone instead of succumbing to the shaky, high-strung feeling in his arms.

“Hello?”

“Hi.” Evan’s voice was so quiet, so soft, like last night. Last night when he called him darling. Oh, fuck. Oh fuck.

“Evan.” His voice sounded just as breathless, just as uncertain, just as reverent. It was a tone that was almost like disbelief. 

“Connor.” He sounded so happy. Like he was coming home, not only to New York, but to him, to Connor Murphy, the thing he’d been missing all these years.

This was the moment. After all that time. Six years away. Now he was going to see Evan, and it was going to be terrifying, and what if it wasn’t good and it killed him in a way he hadn’t experienced in so long and he couldn’t find a way to get out of the situation now that he was so deep in it? Oh, god, he was so fucking deep in it, he didn’t know how he’d escape if it started to go sour. That dragon was beating at the bars in his chest again.

“Uh, Connor?”

“Yeah. Sorry. Damn. I was just…” Totally lost in thought trying to conceptualize the fact that you’re coming back into my life? No, he couldn’t say that. “Just, uh, thinking—”

“Yeah. I know. I’m, uh, very scared, too.” 

“Yeah.”

“Yeah.”

Evan took a deep breath before he spoke. “Wanna walk to the orchard?”

+

The walk to Evan’s house was harrowing, to say the least. Just getting there was a trial in itself—Zoe eyeing him as he walked out the door, passing places they’d kissed, reliving the talk with Heidi yesterday, getting a glimpse of the house and stopping altogether, very seriously considering turning around and just letting the whole thing go. Walking up to the front porch anyway, after genuine minutes of deliberation, during which Evan probably saw him standing outside down the street like an imbecile. Working up the courage to knock, his stomach threatening to churn so hard he sort of thought it might actually just fall out of his body onto the cement stoop. Evan opening the door while he was standing there, trying to get his fist to actually make contact with the door.

And, god, seeing him. Seeing him. S eeing him . His heart actually beat even faster, which he hadn't thought was possible, and the lump in his throat was so high, he almost couldn’t speak. His tongue was sandpaper, he was sweating like crazy, tears came to his eyes before he could even focus on choking them down.

Evan was beautiful . Fuck, he couldn’t think straight. His brain was absolutely short circuiting. He looked so comfortable with himself, so relaxed, in blue jeans and a tee shirt that was maybe a little too tight across his biceps. Or maybe he just fucking had big biceps now. Jesus. And his hair, all sunkissed and curly, and his freckles. Dear god, his freckles. As he stood there, looking so fucking gorgeous, despite the fact that he was clearly also tired, and pale, and struggling, run ragged from the plane ride, with bags under his wide eyes that were looking Connor over in a way that looked something like awe, Connor had to hope Evan was seeing Connor the same way Connor was seeing him. He had to hope. Connor had to fucking hope.

And then, as quickly as it had slowed down, time stopped standing still, and Evan hugged him. Crashed into his arms and almost knocked him off balance, holding him so tight, squeezing the life out of him. Connor buried his face in the crook of Evan’s neck, eyes closed, breathing in deep. God, his smell. Connor thought he was going to faint. He so badly wanted to kiss the skin there, to just show Evan everything that he felt and everything he needed. 

They held each other for so long, like that. Chest to chest, hearts beating wildly against one another. Connor felt a drop on his back. A stray tear, maybe? He was sure he’d probably soaked through the collar of Evan’s shirt with his own. 

When they finally started to disentangle, Evan’s hands crept up his back and around his neck to cup his face. Which, Connor had to admit, was kind of hot. He moved closer, rested their foreheads together. Jesus, fuck. Was Evan going to kiss him right here in broad daylight, where anybody walking down the street could see, two minutes after they’d just seen each other for the first time in six years? 

Evan didn’t seem to mind that he was being weird, not to mention totally gay. He just stared into Connor’s eyes with his beautiful blue ones, and whispered, “I missed you so much.”

“I— I missed you too, Evan.” Connor could feel his breath hitching in his throat as he struggled to get the words out.

“Boys!”

Fuck. He almost jumped out of his skin at the attempt to get out of Evan’s grasp before his mom peeked her head through the doorway. Insanely enough, apparently Evan fucking Hansen had no intention of separating. Even as Connor sprung back, Evan—yes, Evan, the same fucking kid who’d been too afraid to tell anyone they were dating even when they’d clearly been a couple for multiple years—simply moved his grip to hang off of Connor’s shoulders, turning around to beam at his mother.

“Look, Mom! It’s Connor!”

Was this real life? Was Evan Hansen genuinely wrapping his arms around Connor’s shoulders from behind, fucking dangling off him like a schoolgirl in love?

Nobody looked anywhere near as surprised as he felt. In fact, nobody fucking looked surprised at all. Evan had this smile on his face like a kid in a candy store, and Heidi didn’t look confused in the slightest, except that she was acting like Evan had just brokered the end of World War III, or something. She’d been so normal about it yesterday, but right now, he could literally see her trying not to draw attention to the fact that she was wiping tears from her eyes. Holy shit. So it was a real grand reunion.

“Happy to see you.” That seemed to be just about all she could manage as she gestured behind her. “Would you like to—”

“No, Mom, no worries. We’re going for a walk.” He said it softly, no explanation needed. Connor could feel the way Evan’s body moved around him as Evan nodded his head toward Connor. Jesus. They were so close. So, so close.

“Okay.” Her smile was so soft, so… relieved. “Stay warm. You two have fun.” 

Connor thought he saw one last tear escape her eye before she shut the door to the house behind her.

He heard Evan let out a long breath that he didn’t realize they’d both been holding. “Whew! Okay, alright. Let’s walk, then!”

No, no. Evan started off ahead of him, suddenly this fake happy, too peppy, ball of anxiety-turned-energy, like he was too afraid to stop this frazzled momentum for one second for fear that the whole thing would come screeching to a halt. 

Connor just stood there on the doorstep, watching him, numbness threatening to crash back in. This wasn’t Evan from the phone. It couldn’t be. This was a charade, and everything was going to fall apart. This wasn’t… the tender Evan he wanted. Not the one he’d had a few moments ago, their faces pressed close together. This was something different. Something strange.

“Are you coming?”

“Um. Uh, no. Um.” Connor couldn’t quite figure out which words to string together as Evan raced back toward him, eyes wide with terror.

“Nonononono Connor, please don’t—”

“Look. Um. This. Um, something is weird.”

“Do you want me to go inside?” Evan looked like he was in pain. “Like, go away, or something? I mean—”

“I—I, um.” Connor laughed a little at the way neither of them could just fucking spit it out. “I just am confused, um, about why you’re so, uh, high energy, all of a sudden—”

“B-because I’m with you! And I—I was just thinking that uh that you know you and I I mean that we could—”

“Evan.” Before he knew it, his hands were coming to Evan’s shoulders, holding him there in front of him while he stared into his eyes. “Enough of the speed talking anxiety shit.” He sighed. “I—I. I understand that this is nerve wracking, or something, I guess, but—.” He didn’t know exactly what to say. He didn’t want to sound like he couldn’t let Evan be himself. But he also just wanted Evan to be himself in a way that didn’t feel so fake and painful. “I don’t want to sound mean or anything. I just really liked the thirty or forty seconds before you started freaking out and acting all hyper, and—”

“No, I, um, I know.” Evan held his gaze impressively well for the self-proclaimed king of social anxiety. “I think, uh, for those thirty or forty seconds, or whatever, I was just so euphoric about seeing you, that I was acting all weird—”

“It was good.”

“—and I forgot to be nervous, but now it’s just like, everything has to go right, and I have to be on my best behavior, and get you to like me again, and I’m so scared that—”

“Evan.” Connor squeezed his shoulder. “You’re getting all red in the face.” He pulled their chests together again. “Please take some breaths.” Connor demonstrated, taking a few deep breaths himself. He felt Evan’s chest expand and contract along with him, and he thought he could hear a slight sniffle. “I want to be with the you you actually are. Not some you that you’re trying to be out of anxiety because you’re terrified that I’m not going to like you.” Connor pulled back so that he could cup Evan’s face, their foreheads touching again. “Okay?”

Evan swallowed hard and nodded. “Yeah, okay.” He pulled his head away and smiled slightly, shy. “Can I try again? Or, like, can we start over?”

Connor knew he was talking about the walking to the orchard thing, but he couldn’t stop himself from blurting out, “I’ve been wondering the same thing.”

He felt his own shaky smile, saw it reflected back in Evan’s conspiratorial smirk. And then Evan Hansen reached out and took his hand, quietly, softly. Comfortable and understated. The way he wanted things to be. This surprising, nice way.

“This okay?”

He tried not to grin too hard, his stomach winding in uncomfortable knots. “Yeah.”

“Okay. Let’s go to the orchard.” Evan started off, pulling Connor along behind.

+

The trip to the orchard felt… too short? Too long? It felt like eternity, but somehow collapsed into a zillion little seconds, the forever feeling of Evan’s hand in his, so terribly different, but so the same. Evan’s hands were rougher, more calloused, from years of working with trees, Connor guessed. His hands probably weren’t much better. They were probably rough and chapped and not very pretty, from the cold Denver air, and calloused from playing the bass, and holding his pencils too tight for hours on end while he tried to write just the right thing. And it was beautiful, he thought, all these markers of time, but the way that Evan’s hand somehow still felt the same in his. He knew it was all routine, that this was what happened with people who’d loved each other so deeply for too long—they’d go right back to it if given the chance, not realizing that they shouldn’t.

By the time they made it to the orchard, the sun was starting to sink, low and golden, setting the field ahead of them in beautiful, bright, gleaming oranges. Evan started to walk toward the tree they’d always sat under, and for just a moment, Connor felt his feet falter beneath him. Too many bad memories. Too many bad things mixed in with the good, he thought. He’d rather not be here at all than have to be under that tree where—where…

Miraculously, his foot stepped forward again, and he was going to be able to sit under the tree with Evan. Hell, maybe he could try to start making new memories, to cancel out the bad.

When they’d settled in their usual spots, they just sat in silence for quite some time. The light wind made the grassy field ripple in unruly waves. Evan had dropped his hand, but their shoulders were close together, and even though he couldn’t feel every time Evan took a breath, it was like he could sense it. They were so close they might as well be touching, and Connor could just tell when Evan was going to take a breath.

“So.” Connor finally broke the silence. “Some things never change.” He shook his head in a sort of disbelief. “So many years, and here we are.” He could see Evan’s slight smile out of the corner of his eye. 

“Yeah. It’s like I don’t know what to say to you now that we’re face to face.”

“Shoulder to shoulder, actually.” That got a laugh out of Evan, and he decided to be a little bolder. “Well, we could talk about whatever you want. We can do twenty questions. We can do the thirty-six questions that lead to love,” he felt himself blurting out. Evan laughed again, harder this time. Fuck. He hadn’t meant to be that bold. Power through, power through. “Or if you have no interest in being in love, uh, we don’t have to, and—and we could do a rendition of that terrible ‘I’m Not in Love’ song from the 70s.” Jesus. He was getting carried away. “Sorry. I’m getting off track here.”

Evan was starting to laugh so hard, a few seconds more would make it uncontrollable.

“Jesus. I’m trying, Evan!” Connor laughed along with him, playfully batting his shoulder. “Or we could make a game plan for the break. Or talk about ground rules, or something like that. Or just catch up naturally, casually, like normal people! Okay. I’m done talking. I feel like I’m starting to talk fast like you because the stuff I’m saying all sounds kind of stupid and I keep trying to fix it and—Jesus, Evan!”

Evan was, as expected, in complete stitches now, rolled over on the ground and not looking like he was going to get up any time soon. Connor whacked him on the back half-heartedly, now laughing too. Jesus. When they laughed, things felt so good. But he knew at some point in the future he’d probably hold Evan’s laughing against him. 

God, that was a sobering thought, but he knew it happened. Far too often. Something that was fine with them in the moment ended up being shitty later. When he thought too hard about it, he made it bad. Things would always be okay when they were happening, and then when he had time to actually process them, he’d remember all the little ways Evan snubbed him, or ignored him when he was trying to be serious, and made him look stupid, and the fact that Evan was laughing now would make him feel stupid. The moment he got time to himself, the moment he slept on this and woke up still thinking about it, then it wouldn’t be funny anymore, or acceptable at all, because he’d stop treating Evan like a person and start just getting fucking angry at him for not being the perfect partner that he so badly wanted and needed. Fuck. He was starting to do it right now. He needed to stop that train of thought.

Evan stopped it for him. “Let’s try the twenty questions… or the plan. Whichever one works for you”

“We’ll flip a coin.”

“I don’t have a coin.” Evan was busting up laughing again.

“Well, the plan it is, then!” Connor crossed his arms as Evan sat up, settling back into the tree again. “Good, because I need to figure out what I’m going to do, and what I’m gonna tell my family…”

Evan frowned a little at him. “Can’t you just tell them we’re hanging out?” 

“I mean, yeah, I guess. But the more I think about it, I'm worried some of them might be weird about me like, staying over at your place.” Oh, fuck. Did Evan even still think that was a good idea? Connor picked anxiously at a run in his jeans. “Uh, if you still wanted to do that—”

“I do,” Evan said softly. Connor could feel his heart in his fucking throat. “I just, uh, I mean, we’re twenty-six. Who do you think would be weird about that?”

“I don’t fucking know. But, I mean, my mom'll probably immediately think we’re fucking, or at least dating again, which is a scary thought—.” Connor glanced at Evan out of the corner of his eye. “I mean the fucking part. Fuck.”

“Connor. It’s okay.” He said it as though sleeping in your ex's bed after seeing him for the first time in six years was the most normal thing in the world, as though Connor was just fucking overreacting, or something. Another damn strike against Evan, another thing to hold against him while he lay awake in bed, arms around his gentle sleeping frame, trying not to wake him tomorrow morning. Damnit. It wasn’t okay it wasn’t okay it wasn’t— “Connor.” 

Evan’s hand was on his arm, and he felt himself open his eyes, which he didn’t realize he’d been pinching shut. Connor took a deep breath. “Sorry.”

“No, it’s okay. I get that it’s crazy.” Evan slid his hand down Connor’s arm, pulling it away from his body, like he was going to hold his hand, but he pulled away at the last second, leaving their fingers a few inches apart in the dirt. Evan looked away, embarrassed, or nervous, or maybe he’d decided he didn’t want to hold his hand or something. “Look, uh, you can come over tonight if you want.” And then he stiffened, like he was rethinking that, too. “Or, uh, we could—we could just, I mean, take it slower, I guess.” Fuck. Pretty soon there was going to be absolutely nothing left of this conversation. The both of them were just going to be puddles on the ground, drowning in their own self consciousness, unworthiness. “And, uh, Christmas is really soon, so we can work on the gifts, if you want, for a little while, and we can do Christmas late, if you want to give gifts because I would really like to give you a gift I think but I don’t have one planned and then New Year’s, uh, if you're still around for New Year’s Jared is having this party—”

“You… and me.” Connor sat there with his mouth open a little bit. “Going to… Jared Kleinman’s party.” He shook his head a little in disbelief.

“Well, I was just—I was just thinking that maybe it could be fun and I can’t really think of a reason to not do it if you’re still here I mean are you gonna be still here?” Evan turned toward him, his pinky finger brushing over Connor’s. Evan was fucking brushing their pinkies together, like in those damn movies.

“I’m here till the third.”

“Me too.” Evan was breathless. He was staring into Connor’s eyes and he was touching Connor’s pinky and he was breathless. He was touching Connor’s pinky touching Connor’s pinky touching Connor’s pinky—

“I’m sorry, are you doing the gay pinky thing with me?”

“What?”

“Where the characters aren’t sure if they like each other and the audience isn’t sure if they’re gay and they inch their pinkies closer and closer together until they finally touch.” Connor looked down and linked his pinky with Evan’s. “And then everyone can be a hundred percent sure they’re very gay and they’re gonna get together.” When he looked up, smiling, triumphant, Evan’s face was close to his. So fucking close to his. And so timid.

“I—you already know I’m gay.” Evan laughed shakily.

“Yeah, I do.” They were gonna kiss or Connor was gonna look away. He needed to look away. He needed to look away right now or he and Evan were going to fucking make out and it might be out of tension, or out of habit, and he fucking needed for that not to be the case he fucking had to have Evan as a real, legitimate love or not at all. He turned away, but their pinkies stayed together. “So that’s it, then. I’ll come over to yours tonight if you want, and we can hang out, and we’ll hang out for the next few weeks, and we can do the damn Christmas presents on the twenty-seventh or twenty-eighth or something, and we’ll leave on the third.” Connor nodded to himself. “And I’ll go to fucking Kleinman’s party. Even though you know how I feel about him.”

Evan laughed. Connor laughed, too.

When he looked back over at Evan, the other boy was red in the face, staring down at their fingers loosely intertwined in the dirt.

+

The walk back had no hand holding. Just Evan walking ahead, occasionally looking back and catching Connor accidentally checking him out. Connor guessed they were taking a break from the hand holding. Maybe the orchard had been too much tension. He thought he’d started it, and he knew he should probably leave it be, and back off, but he also felt like patting himself on the back for how much he’d flustered Evan. It was funny, and so cute to watch him like that. It was a rare time when the fast talking terrified way Evan had about him didn’t become grating. Connor guessed it was because when Evan got that way over him, it made Evan just like everyone else. He was simply in love and tongue tied. Not completely incapacitated over something random and annoying. Completely incapacitated over Connor.

Anyway, it wasn’t like Connor could really back down from trying to push Evan’s buttons. He was pretty sure Evan expected him to fucking sleep in the same bed as him tonight, and spoon him, and whisper sweet nothings in his ear to help him sleep, probably while wearing nothing but his boxers or some shit, and he didn’t know how he was going to get through any of that without getting a massive fucking boner. So, he reasoned to himself, it was important that he fluster Evan as much as possible now, cut him down to size a little bit. That way it wouldn’t be so embarrassing when he was fucking involuntarily drooling over Evan tonight.

Not that he wasn’t doing it right now. Watching as Evan walked ahead with purpose. His long legs, his strong back, those damn gorgeous curls. Fuck. Evan caught him fucking staring again. 

+

“So, uh, what’s the clothing policy?”

They were standing in Evan’s fucking childhood bedroom, having just eaten cold pizza that Heidi left for them before she headed off to work. And they were going to get in Evan’s little twin bed, two grown ass men. 

Evan started to take his shirt off, and Connor turned around, his cheeks burning. “We can just do like we always do.” There it was again. That stupid tone in Evan’s voice that made it sound like Connor was the strange one for not remembering the usual routine. What usual routine?! They hadn’t seen each other in six years! There wasn’t anything they always did. There hadn’t been anything they always did for six years! There were only things they always had done, six years ago.

“So, boxers?” Connor slowly started to take his pants off, willing himself not to turn around and look at Evan. 

“Yeah. Seems good to me.”

Connor took off his shirt and turned to place his clothes in a pile, keeping his eyes low, avoiding Evan’s gaze. He knew the way he was going to sound, but he had to say it. “Don’t you think it’s a little awkward to—”

“If it’s the way you sleep, it’s the way you sleep.”

When Connor finally looked up, Evan was shrugging and getting in bed. Thank fuck he didn’t have to look at all that skin, skin, skin, skin. So beautiful. So absolutely haunting. So horribly imprinted upon every corner of his fucking mind for eternity. He didn’t need to see it again, he told himself. He really didn’t need to see Evan’s skin again.

Fuck. It was too cold to stand there in the middle of the damn room. He knew he didn’t need to wait for an invitation. Connor climbed over Evan to his usual side of the bed. There was that word again—usual. Nothing was usual about this. When he slipped in, pressed up against the wall as far as he could go, trying not to accidentally touch Evan, there were more questions that needed answering.

“Sleeping positions?”

“What’s wrong with like we used to?” Evan sounded tired, like he was actually going to be able to sleep at all under the current conditions.

“What’s wrong is you fucking left me six years ago and now I’m supposed to spoon you like I’m madly in love with you?”

“Only if you want.” He was on his side, facing away from Connor, and he sounded so whiny, like he used to when—. Connor was not going to finish that thought. They weren’t fucking going to go there tonight. He really fucking hoped he wasn’t getting hard, that it was just his damn imagination. Fuck, fuck, fuck. This was really going swimmingly. “Is this weird for you?” Evan’s voice called him back from his spiral and he sighed, turning toward the other boy. 

“Honestly, yeah it’s fucking weird for me.” His stomach was churning so hard he didn’t think he’d even be able to fall asleep. “I’m sorry if I sound like an asshole, Evan. I don’t fucking have the fight left in me to argue with you. It’s been a long day.”

Apparently, he was fucking preaching to the choir, because all sleepy little Evan Hansen could muster up was a quiet, cute hum. Fuck. Why did he have to be so cute?

“Anyway, yes, it’s weird. And I don’t know how you can’t see that.”

It was genuinely no use trying to reason with Evan like this. He sounded fucking half asleep, the way he was mumbling. “I just want to be happy with you, Connor. Comfort each other. Like we used—. Connor?”

Evan turned toward him in the dark and he didn’t want to be crying. He really didn’t want to be crying, but he was. He was and he knew Evan could hear the way he was sniffling, and then Evan was wiping the tears off his face with his thumbs, holding his face in his warm, calloused hands. “I’m sorry,” he heard himself saying, far off.

“Don’t be sorry. Shhh. Don’t be sorry.” Evan pulled him close haphazardly and Connor felt himself collapse into his strong arms with a sob. 

“I just… don’t understand this. It’s so fucking confusing, Evan. One minute you’re holding my hand. The next you’re shying away from me. Then we’re fucking stripping down and I’m fucking crying in your bed as though the last six years didn’t happen, so I’m still allowed to think you care. Or maybe I’m crying because they did happen, and so now all I can do is cry. It doesn’t make sense. It doesn’t feel fair.”

“Connor—”

“Why is it always like this? One thing is happy and the next thing’s sad. Why can’t we keep any kind of momentum going? Why is one of us always fucking freaking out?” Evan squeezed him close to his chest and Connor just wheezed into his neck. “You know it’s always going to be like this.”

Evan’s hand rubbed slow circles on his back. “Maybe. Maybe not. But it’s worth it to me.” Connor felt that lump in his throat again. “It’s worth it to me to have—”

“Comfort. To have comfort. Not to have me. You don’t really want me. You wanted to get rid of me. You don’t even like it when I’m like this, when I cry and get emotional.” He knew he wasn’t really making sense, that he was saying things he wouldn’t mean tomorrow. He couldn’t help it. He was hysterical. He could feel his breathing speeding up, the tears coming harder and harder, his body shaking in Evan’s arms. Why was he fucking crying anyway? Just because he was back with Evan, who had gone and disowned him, and would do it again in a heartbeat?

“To have you, Connor, in my life.” The words brought him back, rang in his ears. “Please, let me prove it to you.”

It suddenly occurred to Connor that they were going to have this conversation until the end of time. Connor pulled away from Evan, trying to look him in the eye through the darkness. “I don’t understand.”

“Connor.” Evan sounded mumbly again, tired, a little far away, just out of reach. “If you want me to get out of bed, I will. I can sleep on the floor if this is all making you uncomfortable.”

“No! Stay.” He found himself grabbing Evan’s hand under the covers, squeezing tight. “I… this is so complicated. Just stay. Just— just fucking stay.” 

Connor rolled over, wiping the rest of his tears away, still holding Evan’s hand, pulling it to wrap around him. Evan’s body was so warm against his back. He held him so close from behind. Things were going to be okay. He was so exhausted. His head was swimming. He was going to fall asleep. Was that the ghost of Evan’s lips between his shoulder blades?

Thursday the 22nd

Connor woke up with a boner. And Evan’s was up against his back. Fuck. Fuck. Fuckfuckfuck. He didn’t fucking know what to do. Crying might be a good option. Or maybe meditating. Although he couldn’t do it normally. He couldn’t get out of bed with Evan’s arms around him. Evan’s face smashed into his shoulder. Evan’s fucking dick right up against his fucking back. Jesus. 

He didn’t know what time it was. He didn’t know when Evan would wake up. He’d stupidly chosen his old side of the bed, up against the wall, where he couldn’t survey the room or sneak away or even reach the bedside table without waking up sleeping beauty there behind him. So he’d do his usual. He’d try to breathe. 

In, out. Evan’s cheek was so warm against his skin. In, out. Something felt complete here. In, out. What were the odds that Evan was just pretending to be asleep and would continue to pretend to be asleep for the foreseeable future just to be close to—

Evan moaned. Or hummed. Or whatever anybody fucking wanted to call it. A cute, morning sound of someone really tired. His arms tightened around Connor’s waist as he stretched, pressing hard into Connor’s back with another groan, and then. Connor was not imagining it. Connor was not imagining the feeling of Evan’s mouth on his back, the way Evan’s hand roamed over his abs. Not fucking touching for any real reason, not kissing, not really. Just, touching him. Evan’s lips there against him, not moving, but there. And his hand idly grazing Connor’s body, just absolutely beyond understanding. 

He didn’t know if he should say something. Should he tell Evan to stop? He liked it. God, fuck, he liked it, but was Evan even awake to know—

Evan hummed again, pulling him inconceivably closer, with a real press of his lips to Connor’s spine that made his skin tingle. “Jesus, Evan,” he breathed, and he didn’t know if it was annoyance, or the lightning bolts flying through his veins, but he groaned, and then it was cold.

“Oh my god. Sorry, sorry.” Evan rolled over, his hands suddenly pulled away from Connor. “Jesus, I’m. God. I’m so sorry, I—”

“Evan.” Connor turned to him, just catching his wrist before he could jump out of bed entirely. “Come here, please.” Now it was his turn to sound whiny. “It’s cold without you.” 

“I didn’t mean to—”

“We don’t have to figure it out right now.”

Evan smiled. “Where have I heard that one before?” 

And Connor knew it was true. This was part of how it had started all that time ago. These moments of connection with no real plan, and maybe that’s part of why it had gotten so sideways, but god, couldn’t they just have it, for once? For a moment? Please? He fucking needed Evan’s skin on his and he needed his warmth and it was morning and he was tired and right now he didn’t care how he got it.

Evan came back to bed, and Connor put his arms around him, and things were okay, for now. He might’ve accidentally kissed behind Evan’s ear. He wasn’t sure. He was too busy falling back asleep.

+

“She told me you came by the other day.” Evan said it offhandedly as he pushed his pancakes around his plate, like he was trying to seem as though it just happened to come to mind, like it didn’t mean anything at all. 

Connor, for his part, nearly choked on the bite in his mouth before he could swallow it down. Heidi had cooked breakfast for them, all smiles, and then dashed out to “run errands,” or whatever dutiful mom thing she’d thought of so that she could leave her son alone with him and not be in the way, it seemed like. She’d hardly fucking closed the door before Evan could accost him with this… this embarrassing and horribly true accusation, a soft smile on his face like it was a good thing that Connor had turned up at his house out of the blue unannounced and had a heart to heart with his mom, or maybe just like it was a good thing that Evan knew about it. Connor sputtered all over again just thinking through the possibilities, and then he took a massive swig of orange juice, trying not to completely choke and die.

“I really—I mean, it sounds like you had a good talk.”

“Yeah,” he said lamely, looking down at the table, willing the tears of embarrassment to just give him a break this time. “I, uh. I’m sorry I came over. I didn’t really mean to. It just sort of happened, and then she came outside, and things just sort of started happening—”

“It’s okay. She likes you. She’s glad you’re back, I think.” When Connor looked up, Evan was smiling softly, his mouth full of a big bite of chocolate chip pancake. “I mean, she really loves you.”

“I know, but she’s your mom and I shouldn’t have—”

“Thank you. For telling her.” Now it was Evan’s turn to look down. “And for helping me let her into my life a little more. It’s important for her, y’know?” Evan laughed a little, shaking his head. “I mean, it is for me, too. Who the hell am I kidding? I need her, and I know I’m too secretive, and I really should be more open about things I’m dealing with for her, because she wants to be there, and she wants to do what she can to help.” Evan smiled at him across the table in this beautiful, understated way. “She knows you’re a good influence. And I know you all hadn't talked in quite some time—” Quite some time?! Again, they hadn’t seen each other in six years. Connor thought quite some time was a pretty significant understatement. “—but she definitely enjoyed it. And I’m sure she’d love to talk to you more.”

“So she doesn’t find it weird that I’m sleeping over?”

“Of course not. She knows I’m gay now, anyway.”

Connor started at that. It was all he could do not to jump out of his chair right then and there. What the fuck did it mean that Heidi knew Evan was gay? Had Connor just been looking like an idiot the other day trying to hide it for absolutely no reason? “Does she know about—? I mean, you never told her then—”

“Come on.” Evan shrugged, exhaling a short laugh. “She’d have to be blind to never have thought or seen or suspected—”

Connor thought through the scenes he could remember from Evan’s house all those years ago. So many nights trying to be quiet in Evan’s bed. So many days in front of the TV, sitting too close together to really be friends, but scooting just far enough away whenever she entered the room to make it plausible. He smiled fondly. “Yeah.” He laughed. “You’re right.”

Evan laughed at that, too. “I mean, I don’t know exactly what she thinks, or if she’s put every little thing together, but she must have at least guessed that I had a crush on you.”

Connor rolled his eyes. “Oh, at the very least.”

“Aw, shut up.” Evan batted at him playfully from across the table.

“I mean, the way you always sat extra close when I made you watch a scary movie.” Evan snorted, trying to shrug him off. “The way you knew what kind of coffee I took, and you started to sometimes make me breakfast in the mornings when I slept over.”

Evan shook his head, joking around. “That could have just been a hospitable, friendly thing to do for a guest.” 

“The way you would look at me.” And Connor knew he had him, the way Evan didn’t immediately respond. Hell, he knew it by his own memory, the way Evan got that gorgeous stare like there wasn’t anybody else in the world. “The way you looked at me that time I came out of the bathroom—”

Evan coughed a little on his sip of coffee. When he spoke, he sounded too incredulous. “What specific time did you come out of the bathroom that you would remember so well—?” 

“You know the time.” And Evan did. Connor could see it in the way Evan’s cheeks were heating up under his gaze. “It was when I first started sleeping over, when we were first starting to be a real thing, and I came out of the shower with just a towel, and you apparently still weren’t used to seeing me like—”

“Okay, yeah, and my mom came down the hall and probably saw me with a raging boner. I don’t need to remember this.” Connor laughed as Evan hung his head in his hands. “I thought you didn’t like to talk about sex!”

Connor’s stomach churned, a mix of terror and pleasure, and for a moment he almost wanted to say he was sorry for bringing it up. But god damnit, right now, he decided he wanted to flirt more. To see Evan’s delightful little smirk on his bright red face for just a few more seconds. So he powered through. “I wasn’t talking about sex. If that’s the association it brings up for you—”

“OKAY! Enough!”

Connor was laughing so hard he almost couldn’t enjoy that fucking adorable bashful look on Evan’s face.

+

“So, do you wanna talk about last night? ... Or, this morning?” Evan walked ahead of him on the sidewalk as they made their way to Connor’s house. It was probably best that he show his face at least more than, like, the few hours he had been in the house so far. He didn’t know if it was odd that Evan was tagging along, or if he was just imagining things, and it wasn’t that big a deal. He thought his family would probably go into a state of shock, but at this point, he had to be around for at least a little while, and he guessed he’d rather do it with Evan than without him. Evan, who was looking back at him expectantly, waiting for an answer to the question he’d asked several seconds ago. Whoops. 

“Talk about it?” Connor felt his face fall into a frown. “I know you joked about it this morning, but really…” He avoided Evan’s gaze, scratched absently at one of the scars on his arm. “Would it be so bad if we just, didn’t? I feel like we almost do better when we’re not talking about things.” He laughed, but it was half hearted. He knew this was part of how they’d gotten into the entire mess in the first place. All these unspoken ideas, expectations that neither of them cared to state. Lingering touches, long glances, but also endless missed signals, miscommunications. Ending up where one of you wanted a real relationship and the other wanted something you could keep a secret and you both stupidly assumed those two could be the same thing.

“I think, um. It’s okay for now. I guess we can talk about it eventually. I mean, I think we probably should, at some point.”

Connor felt the lump in his throat coming on. “Why?” He stopped in the middle of the sidewalk. God, he didn’t want to argue, but it was about to happen, he just didn’t know on what scale. “No offense, but you were the one who said you just wanted to comfort each other and be like we used to. I mean, that’s what we did, and that’s on you.”

Evan stopped, too, turning toward him, wiping a hand over his face as though totally embarrassed. “No, I, um. I know. I just, I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable—”

“Evan, I would have said something if—”

“And I just feel like maybe we should have talked about it more before we did that—”

“Again, your fault.”

“I know—”

“You’re the one who wanted to sleep together in just our boxers while I was telling you it was weird, and you were being little cute sleepy baby Evan and you didn’t want to talk about it then—”

“You think it’s cute when I’m sleepy?” Evan gave him this stupid cheeky grin, totally out of nowhere, like he’d caught him trying to flirt with him or something.

“That’s all you took from what I just said?” Evan shrugged, still smiling. Connor rolled his eyes. “Look, what is it exactly that you want to talk about?”

The smile suddenly disappeared from Evan’s face. He swallowed hard, started walking again, no longer facing Connor. “I—I just feel like, we have a gameplan for the next few weeks, for like what we’re doing, but—.” He glanced at Connor out of the corner of his eye. “Should we have a game plan for… us?”

Connor tried not to laugh, but he couldn’t stop himself from opening his eyes wide in disbelief. “Evan, for that to happen, you need to know what you want, and I need to know what I want.” His eyes met Evan’s beautiful blue ones, and he held his gaze steady. “And I don’t know if either one of us has quite figured that out yet.” He brushed his knuckles against Evan’s, and, a little to his surprise, the other boy took his hand. “But, to start, do you want to sleep in my bed tonight?”

Evan smiled, a small blush tracing its way across his face. He nodded slightly, eagerly. “Yeah, I—um, yeah. Yes. Definitely.”

+

“Evan?” Connor’s mother was standing slack jawed in the front hallway of their house, surely the first of many family members who would be experiencing this same emotional roller coaster today. Her eyes were so round, so full of something. Connor couldn’t tell if it was terror or hope. They looked like they were about to pop out of her head, she was staring so hard. “Evan Hansen?”

Before Evan could say something, Connor interjected, ushering Evan along toward Cynthia. “Yeah, in the flesh. He’s back in action.” Connor felt himself smile at his mother’s concern, because somehow, despite everything, it was a little funny to see her so confused and worked up. On one hand, the way she looked at Evan represented pretty much everything he felt—there was so much pain behind those eyes, pain for him, pain at remembering how he’d felt, but also excitement and intrigue and a somehow long-misplaced love. 

And before he could say anything else, his mother was rushing into Evan’s arms, pulling him into a tight, probably overwhelming hug. And she was whispering loud enough for them both to hear, “We missed you. Please don’t go away again.”

To his absolute fucking surprise, Evan actually reassured her, shaking his head. “No, I won’t. I’m so sorry for—”

Connor thanked his lucky stars for something beeping in the kitchen.

“What’s that? Popcorn?”

“Uh, yeah.” His mother had pulled away from Evan, wiping under her eyes, seemingly to avoid tears. “We were about to do the annual showing of Love, Actually. ” Connor groaned a little, but his mom just smiled wider. “Would you two like to join us?”

“No, I think we’re—”

“Sure!”

Connor did his best to look wearily over at Evan while simultaneously pretending he didn't notice the way his mom lit up at the other boy's consent. They were already getting along swimmingly, both smiling back at him, like they were back to old times, conspiring against him once more.

+

So Evan and Connor shared popcorn and sat too close to each other, wedged into the corner of the couch, with Connor’s completely oblivious grandparents on the loveseat across from them, his very confused father in the recliner, and his obnoxiously nosy sister and mother huddled together on the other side of the couch, glancing over at them at least once every minute, occasionally whispering amongst themselves, no doubt about the boys and their sudden and strange… relationship? Was it a relationship? Was it something else? What was happening? How should they be treating Evan? Connor could see it all, all the expressions on their faces. The concern, the uncertainty, the excitement. He was sure that was what they were saying. Something like that.

Connor grabbed a few pieces of popcorn and leaned over until his lips nearly brushed Evan’s ear.

“We should hold hands, or spoon, or something." He considered his options for a moment. "We could put a blanket over us and pretend like I’m jacking you off.”

He thought he heard Evan choke a little. “Why?!”

Connor huffed a small laugh, nodded ever so slightly toward the women on the other edge of the couch. “Put on a show for our little watchers. Freak Zoe out. Give her something extra to get all nervous about for the next hour and a half.” He caught Zoe staring again out of the corner of his eye. “I could just stay like this. Pretend I’m whispering sweet nothings in your ear the entire movie. Lay my head on your shoulder.” He could feel the way Evan’s chest shook with quiet laughter as the other boy slid their fingers together, conspicuous.

“Let’s stick to something easy, that won’t make me— I mean, that we can handle…”

Connor tried not to look down toward Evan’s crotch, tried not to really examine him, tried not to finish the sentence: make me what? Make me nervous? No, he was pretty sure Evan was going to say make me horny, or something equally lovely and insane. Jesus, Connor was excited for therapy tomorrow. Maybe they could explore this horrible sexuality of his.

He leaned his head on Evan’s shoulder, just slightly, cuddling up to him a little more for good measure. “I hate this movie.”

“I think it’s cute.”

“You would say that.”

“I like this part.”

“Are you kidding me?” Connor pulled back to look Evan square in the face, laughing quietly. “You like the part where they pose for the porno.”

“I mean, yeah. I don’t know. I guess it’s easy to like someone when you’re in that kind of position already with them. It comes naturally, or something, because you’re already really vulnerable. You already know they’re safe. I think there’s something sweet about that.”

Connor smiled at him awkwardly, uncertain of what to make of anything he’d just said, but happy to try to make something of it nonetheless. He was just happy to hear Evan talk, and share something new that Connor hadn’t thought of before. Sure, it felt random and strange, but that was part of the appeal of it, Connor thought. He squeezed Evan’s hand and laid his head back down on his shoulder.

Connor had seen this movie upwards of a thousand times. It was just one of those films that his family had to watch at least once every holiday season, and while he respected that, there were some parts that felt stupid, and boring, like filler for the actual stories in between. Most of his favorite parts were at the end, anyway. He figured it wouldn’t hurt to close his eyes.

He was so absurdly comfortable, slumped up against Evan in yesterday’s clothes, quietly dozing off to the rhythm of the other boy’s breathing. And he didn’t miss the way that Evan shifted under his weight, getting comfortable, getting back to old ways, falling back into step like Connor suddenly knew they could. The way Evan held his hand, rubbing it in little circles with the pad of his thumb. He was sure Zoe noticed it, too, the real essence of care there, and it almost made him laugh to know she’d be begging him to explain the whole thing later.

Connor only dozed off a little, just barely, only for a few minutes. He thought of what Evan had said about the couple. Things were easier for them because they were already in an intimate position. Connor thought, or maybe he dreamed, about the way they brushed their teeth together over the phone. He saw the fish in the cup, or maybe it was Evan. Maybe that was Evan’s voice talking out of the fish in the cup, saying something Connor couldn’t quite hear or understand. I love you, I love you, I love you. Enough now.

Connor jolted awake to that horrible scene. The man from The Walking Dead , confessing his love to a girl he couldn’t possibly ever fucking be with. Jesus. It was terrible to watch. The way he walked away, simultaneously defeated and earnest, like loving her from afar was something he could be content with, like he could live with himself and his life not having her. “Enough. Enough now.” 

God, the words were ringing in his ears and the bile was rising in his throat. He knew this was the way his life was going to be. Hell, he was dealing with it right now. Fuck. Evan was going to hold his hand and cuddle him and press their foreheads close to one another for a week or two and then he was going to go home to wherever the fuck he lived and this was all going to be over. There was no way it could continue, no matter how badly either of them might end up wanting that, or already wanted that. Fuck, he already wanted it. And he needed to learn to let it go, to be able to say enough, but he couldn’t. He knew he couldn’t. God, he was crying again. He hoped Evan wouldn’t notice. But his subtle tears were wetting Evan’s shoulder and he was sniffling lightly and Evan absolutely noticed.

“Connor?” Evan mumbled, low in his ear. “Are you okay?

Connor nodded, not looking up.

“You’re holding on kinda hard.” Evan moved their hands together, and Connor realized he’d been fucking squeezing the life out of Evan’s hand, not even really noticing. But in some horrible way, he hoped that the pressure communicated everything it needed to. 

God, Evan had to know, he thought as he tried his best to loosen his grip. He had to know what Connor was feeling, the awful constricted screaming, the burning in his chest, in his eyes, coming up his throat harder and harder until it burst, screaming louder and burning hotter the harder he tried to keep it down. He just let it come and come and keep coming. He laughed a little.

“Sorry.” Connor tried to wipe his eyes on Evan’s shirt without being too obvious, clearing his head of all the fucking thoughts as new, better characters appeared onscreen. “I like this part.” He squeezed Evan’s hand again, but this time it was tender, and Evan just laughed when the kid in the octopus costume got in the car.

Connor lifted his head for a moment, smiling. His nose was hardly an inch from Evan’s. He could see every freckle, every hair, every fleck of color in the other boy’s eyes. God. Evan’s curls, framing his face like a some damn cherub as he laughed first at the octopus, and then at Connor just sitting there smiling stupidly. 

“What are you looking at?”

“Nothing.” Connor shook his head. Just how beautiful you are. No. He shouldn’t say that. Enough. Enough. He had to let these little things just be enough. He felt the smile on his face falter and he laid his head back down on Evan’s shoulder.

“I like this part, too,” he heard himself saying a few minutes later, snuggling impossibly closer to Evan as Colin Firth proposed to the housekeeper.

+

“I love that storyline because it’s sweet that they can connect over the commonalities they do share, instead of being divided by the parts they can’t understand about each other or their different cultures and languages,” Connor said as he pulled off his shirt, this time facing Evan, who was turned around today. “I like that the way they communicate isn’t a barrier to their love. Just because they speak different languages doesn’t mean they can’t have a real and substantive relationship.” He stripped down to his boxers, tossing his dirty clothes into his laundry bin. “I’m jealous that you got to see the other scenes with them, where they actually fall in love.” Evan was slower getting his clothes off, and fuck if Connor didn’t give himself just one beautiful second of not caring, shamelessly allowing himself a moment to watch the gorgeous muscles in Evan’s back as he pulled off his shirt.

“I thought you said you hated the whole thing.” Evan turned to him, raising a skeptical eyebrow. 

Connor could feel his smile betraying him, his face flushing at being caught checking Evan out yet again. And now bumbling through a stupid reply: “Well, not the whole thing.” 

Jesus, Evan was so cute. A little shorter than Connor, but stronger, more toned. So tan, so freckled, from all that time spent in the sun. God, his body that had been hidden under the covers yesterday, that Connor hadn’t seen yesterday. And his abs—

“My eyes are up here.” Evan huffed out a laugh. Christ. And when Connor did look up at Evan’s face, the other boy had this adorable smirk, like he was caught between being bashful and holding his flirty composure, and he really wanted to do the latter. 

Connor rolled his eyes. “Aw, don’t be a dick.”

“Oh, I won’t.” Evan was eyeing him, trying his best to hold that damn smirk while he sputtered with laughter. “You’ve got enough of that going on already.”

He could feel the laughter about to bubble up out of him no matter how hard he tried to hold it in, willing himself not to look down at his stupid fucking boner. And then, when he couldn’t keep it together anymore, Connor didn’t think. He just grabbed Evan’s shirt out of his hands and snapped him with it. “Fuck you, bro.”

“Clearly someone wants to.” 

By some insane luck, Connor just laughed harder, hitting Evan a few more times for good measure, and then abandoning the shirt, playfully batting at him, and then they were fighting, wrestling, scrapping their way toward the bed, Connor jokingly trying to jump on Evan’s back and Evan successfully spinning around and throwing him down in a fit of laughter.

And there were the old things, alarm bells, playing over and over in his head: Jesus! I don’t have clothes on! I have a sexuality! What is happening! Therapy tomorrow! Mission abort! Mission abort! Mission abort!

But they were so quiet, so far away compared to the feeling of Evan’s skin on his, so light and insubstantial compared to the weight of Evan on top of him, so quiet compared to the sound of Evan’s murmury, grumbly voice when they stopped laughing and he leaned down to speak in Connor’s ear: “I promise this is all I’m gonna do. And we can find another time to figure it out. It’s just, easy to be with you like we were before and I want it so much, I love it so much and—”

The soft moan of Evan’s sloppy kisses on his neck.

Friday the 23rd

Holy. Fucking. Shit.

Connor didn’t have words. There were no words. 

Evan had kept his promise. All he’d done was kiss his neck. Nothing else.

Connor was so fucking horny. He knew he didn’t want more. It would make everything so complicated. It could ruin whatever they had going on. He’d gone so long without it, he was sure he’d be fucking fine. He didn’t want it. He didn’t want it. He didn’t want it.

God, but he did.

He did want it and he couldn’t admit that and he had to let what was happening be enough because dear god if they fucked, if they got naked—hell, if they even kissed on the lips, he was going to go into complete and total shutdown. He was sure he’d start bawling on the spot. There’d be no hope for him. He wanted Evan so bad his heart literally ached. 

He rolled over and Evan wasn’t there. 

Connor shot up in bed, frantically grabbed some clothes, and stumbled down the stairs to find Evan and Zoe at the kitchen table. They were facing away from him, hunched over something he couldn’t see.

“Important business?” He could hear the annoyed edge in his own voice as he tugged his sleeves down his arms, but he felt himself soften involuntarily when Evan stood up and turned toward him, wearing his shirt.

“Just catching up. Good morning.” 

“How long have you two been—”

“Not long.” Zoe looked up from whatever they’d been doing—or maybe watching?—dropping her phone face down onto the table. “Like Evan said, we were just sort of catching up.” She had this look in her eye as she stood, shifting her gaze a little suspiciously between them. Connor knew exactly what she was going to say before she even opened her mouth. “So, you two are really gonna date again?”

“Zo—”

“Maybe.” Evan shrugged. 

Connor choked a little on his own spit. “Jesus, Evan!”

“What? You wanted to keep the people guessing!”

“Oh my god.” Zoe blinked wildly and shook her head, laughing. “Why don't you two confer about it and tell me later? Clearly I’ve struck a nerve.” Before she stepped around the corner and up the stairs, Connor thought he saw her raise an eyebrow at him.

Evan grabbed his hand before she was out of sight, and Connor felt himself pull away on instinct. Evan hissed, bringing his hand immediately back to his side. “Sorry.”

It was going to be a bad day if Connor didn’t fucking do something right now. He was going to resent Evan for getting up without him, he was going to be weird about touching him, the entire thing was going to get fucked up, and he couldn’t take that. He couldn’t handle it. He reached out for Evan’s hand again, this time intertwining their fingers. It felt comfortable, warm, safe even, like it always had been.

“Can I say something?”

Evan nodded hesitantly, looking a little morose.

“If I go to sleep with you I want to wake up with you.” Connor took a quick breath. “And I’m jealous that for whatever reason you’d rather spend time with Zoe than with me.” He wrung his hand in Evan’s. “I know that sounds stupid and maybe aggressive or rude but my therapist is trying to get me to be honest so—”

Evan stood on his tiptoes and pecked his cheek and it burned. “It’s okay. I understand.” Evan smiled up at him. “I get how that looks. But I’d rather spend time with you. I just wanted to talk to her about something. I’m sorry.”

Connor tried not to blush so hard his ears turned red. He didn’t think it was working. “Talk to her about something?”

“If I said it was for your Christmas present would that make it less weird?”

Connor felt his throat seize up. Not the Christmas presents. Not Evan’s hand in his. Not falling terrifyingly back into love with someone he could never have, with whom his relationship would never be the same. Jesus fucking christ. He nodded. “Yeah.” When his voice came out, he thought it sounded strangled. “That makes it makes more sense.”

+

Connor did not know why the fuck he had asked for this. But here they were, back at the orchard, looking out over the horizon, Evan’s head on his shoulder. Had Connor actually said, “I want to spend some time alone with you”? What the fuck was going on with him? 

But at the same time, he knew why they had to do this. He knew what they had to do. Evan had been right. They couldn’t just keep on like this, especially with the way it was escalating so quickly, so suddenly all the time. They were headed for a train wreck if they couldn’t figure it out, or at least talk about it. 

Connor swallowed the lump in his throat, felt the tears already coming on before he even asked the question.

“So, are you trying to get back together with me?”

Evan looked up at him from his shoulder, with this quizzical look like he couldn’t have seen that question coming, or he wasn’t sure why Connor was asking it. “I’m not sure.”

Red flag. Alarm bells. Connor felt his body tense as Evan laid his head back on his shoulder. Uncertainty about him was the reddest red flag Evan could possibly produce. Connor swallowed down the lump in his throat on instinct. He had to remember to stop. To think. He needed to be on high alert with Evan. He needed to regard him with suspicion, always. He could absolutely not let this situation get out of hand. Clearly, Evan didn’t know what the fuck he wanted, which meant that he probably didn’t want him, he just wanted the cuddling, and the attention, and the feeling that he wasn’t alone, which Connor fully understood, but also really fucking resented. God, Connor wanted to give Evan the stars and the fucking moon. He wanted to have things his way, and keep Evan for life. He wanted wanted wanted. All he did was fucking want. God. Connor thought of the fish in the cup. He had to take this for what it was, not what he wanted it to be. He had to let it be beautiful despite the fact that it would end.

“Did I say something wrong?” Evan sat up and looked at him, his brow furrowed, and it occurred to Connor that Evan could see he was crying. Evan’s thumbs found his cheeks, wiping away the tears. “Hey.” His voice was so soft. “Please don’t cry.”

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I’m—” Connor’s chest shook with the pain of it, with knowing he and Evan were some kind of fucking star crossed. He couldn’t help the way his face fell into Evan’s shoulder, the way his arms wrapped around the other boy instinctively. “I just wanted you so bad. For so long. It— I’m sorry.”

And Evan held him, the way he always used to, running his hands down Connor’s hair with gentle shushes, twirling the bottoms of the strands between his fingers. “I love you. I’m here. I don’t want you to cry.”

Connor shook his head against the fabric of Evan’s sweater. How could Evan love him when he put him in situations like this? It wasn’t possible. It didn’t make sense. “Evan, don’t say you love me unless you mean it.”

“I do mean it.” His voice was urgent, flustered, afraid.

“If you meant it you’d—”

“I love you so much that I don’t want to hurt you. And I don’t know what you want. And so I don’t know if I want to get back together, or if we should, or if it even makes sense to.” Evan blurted it all out in a huff, holding Connor at arm’s length to look into his eyes. There was hurt there, shame, confusion, the pain of not knowing.

Connor wanted so badly to find something to say to make it all okay, for both of them. His thoughts kept going back to the fish in the cup. He knew there was no way to do this. No way to go all in. Connor knew. He knew it would be better if they just left it. He knew that saying something, promising some beautiful, powerful reconciliation, a new life together, would turn out badly. But at the same time, that was what he wanted. He wanted it so badly, but he also knew what he knew to be true. And he said it before he knew what he was saying. “My life got a lot better without you.”

Evan’s expression didn’t change. If anything, it softened. He just smiled a little. “I kind of fell apart without you.”

“Can I be honest?” Evan nodded. “I guess I figured you would.” Evan’s eyes widened a little. “I mean, I think maybe you didn’t realize how much you couldn’t do without me. For me, life went back to something kind of normal. Which was horrible, don’t get me wrong. But it did get better eventually, and I think I started to figure some things out. It made me a lot better.”

Evan nodded slightly, chewing his lip a little. There was a softness in his eyes that said he wasn’t really upset. That somehow he understood. “Yeah. I think I eventually got better, too.”

“Evan, you called me thinking you were gonna kill yourself.”

Now it was the other boy’s turn to let tears fill his eyes. “That was different.”

Connor didn’t press him. Evan had given so many reasons why he might’ve felt that bad, but he figured the whole story would come out in time. Connor was here, and he cared, and that’s what mattered to both of them. Not that Evan detailed the entire history of the pain he’d been through to get to this point. Connor took a deep breath. 

“It is—” He hesitated. “It was nice not to talk to you. I was safe. Being around you as a friend, or in that quiet way you wanted, it was torture. I wanted to love you so fully it sometimes felt like my heart was going to fucking explode out of my chest. And having that quiet suffocation, trying to tiptoe around everything, to be as unobtrusive as you needed. It was like my heart was constantly being ripped out and stomped on. And it hurt so much worse after you left. Seeing you after that was. Jesus. I couldn’t even manage it. You remember that time I yelled at you—”

“The time when I was five minutes late to what was supposed to be a friendly catchup dinner?” Evan looked a little annoyed, but also maybe like he was halfway joking. “Yeah. I remember.” He rolled his eyes and laughed. Definitely joking. Connor exhaled.

“Yeah. I just couldn’t be around you at that point. It hurt so immeasurably bad, and I would get so mad that it was like. I’d probably explode and hurt you back just being in the same room.”

“And you did.” Evan smiled ruefully, but still with that hint of humor, a quiet acknowledgement that they’d both been stupid, but also that it was a long time ago. Maybe it didn’t hurt so bad anymore. Maybe they could look back on it fondly. They were just kids. Maybe things were different now.

Connor raised his eyebrows at the remark. But then he nodded, nearly giving a small laugh. He mirrored Evan’s subtle smile. “And I did.” Things were quiet for a moment. Maybe Connor shouldn’t have said anything, but he did. “I mean, in my defense, all you wanted to do was make small talk that night.”

“I have anxiety.” Evan shrugged and raised his eyebrows as though it was self explanatory. “Of course I wanted to make small talk after I broke up with the person I loved the most, ever. What was I supposed to do? I couldn’t talk to you like we used to—”

“I know. I just wanted to talk in a different way. Talking about nothing was like, a constant reminder that it was over, and that you’d ditched me, and you didn’t want me anymore. It just stung so bad.” He sighed. “I wanted to be close like we were when we were friends. Like we are now.” He probably shouldn’t have said that either, seeing as nobody seemed to fucking know what they were at this point anyways. He just wanted to always be Evan’s friend, or to have the assurance that Evan would never leave. He guessed he wanted both. Or that they were somehow one in the same. 

Connor blinked. The fish in the cup. The fish in the cup. He had to remember that Evan was never going to be able to guarantee him forever. He needed to learn to live with that. Deep breath in. Deep breath out.

Evan laid his head back on his shoulder. “Yeah, I like being like this.” He breathed in so close to his neck, like he was committing the scent of Connor’s shirt to memory. “I missed you.”

+

Thank god Connor had therapy. A blissful hour away from Evan to try to get his life together, to no longer be in shambles. When Cheyanne popped up on his zoom screen, he figured he’d better not waste a fucking second.

“My ex keeps kissing me and I want to be with him and I know I have to let it go and just be open to the experience instead of trying to control it because that’s what the page of cups is all about but I want him so bad it’s searing through my damn heart. Also, I’m so fucking horny—”

“Hello to you, too.” Cheyanne laughed, wide eyed.

Connor felt himself laugh, too. He sounded so fucking much like Evan. “Right. Hi. Slowing down.” He took a breath, then another. “It’s been two and a half days that we’ve been hanging out nonstop. We’ve been sleeping in the same bed, and cuddling. He hasn’t kissed me on the lips yet, and we definitely haven’t fucked or anything—”

“And you’re scared of that, right? That was part of what we talked about last week?” 

Connor took another deep breath, feeling his heart slow down a little bit in his chest. “Yeah. I think I’m still scared of fucking. But when I’m with him, it’s like, it sort of comes and goes in these little blips. I’ll feel so good while we’re laughing together that I really do want to do it, or at least I’m not afraid of doing it, and I guess that kind of scares me, too.” Connor sighed, uncertain. “Like, yesterday night, we were play fighting—” Cheyanne quirked an eyebrow at that. “—and he looked so handsome in just his boxers, and he kissed my fucking neck, and I just… wanted. I wanted so bad it was scary.”

“So, thinking about this, the main fear is being seen? Being known? Having him so close to you and then being afraid that he’ll disappear again?”

“Yeah, mostly.”

“Okay.” Cheyanne said it slowly, like they were getting somewhere. “Mostly. So is there something else I should be wondering about?”

Connor took a deep breath. He didn’t want to talk about it. But he was fucking going to. Of course he was going to. He’d led the session right to it at record fucking speed, and he had this sense that if he could just find a way to deal with it, maybe some of the bullshit would go away. He could talk about it. He could talk about it. “It’s— Jesus.” He felt his legs already starting to quiver, his eyes already filling a little with tears. “Well it’s probably the least proud moment of my life. And that’s saying a lot.” He pinched his lips together, swallowed. “It’s just a bad memory of sex. I don’t like thinking about it. I try to put it out of my mind, but it’s like no matter what I do, it colors everything I do. Or everything we do.” The tears started to fall, drip by tiny drip. “I’m sorry it happened. And I know it’s not a big deal to anyone else.” Connor felt his chest constrict, air forcing itself in and out of his lungs almost painfully. He wiped his eyes. He could do this. “The first time Evan and I had sex.” He couldn’t look at the camera, or Cheyanne. “We were both drunk. Not like blackout or anything, but fucking drunk. Too drunk. And it was after a party and it was in my car and I’d already had sex once before with Miguel but it was Evan’s first fucking time doing anything like that and I let it happen when we were both drunk and who knows what the fuck could’ve happened and he insists we were both just being dumb teenagers but I’m the one who got him to start drinking in the first place and it’s just so apparent to me that I ruined his life and it makes me suicidal to even think—”

“Connor.” He was holding his thumb against his wrist way too hard. “Connor, it’s okay. It’s not happening right now. Take a breath with me.”

Connor took the breath. And cried. And cried and cried and cried and kept fucking crying until he thought he couldn’t cry anymore. He felt himself say the thing he could never say to himself. “It’s my worst memory. It’s the worst thing I ever did.”

Cheyanne frowned in this confused way, and Connor hated himself even more for the fact that she didn’t get it. This was maybe the worst part about the entire thing, the fact that nobody fucking understood it. “So, if Evan doesn’t mind what happened, why do you mind?”

Yeah, that was always the question, wasn’t it? What’s your problem, Connor? Why do you take this so seriously if nobody else does? Why are you not tough enough to just get over it? Why don’t you react like a normal person? Why can’t you see things how everybody else sees them?

“Connor, come back to me here. What about this is so important to you that you feel this way? Clearly this is important to you. Why is that? Can you describe it to me so that we can find out where this difficult feeling is coming from?”

Connor felt himself sigh. He was so damn angry, all of a sudden. He didn’t want anyone to talk to him like this, like he was a stupid kid who couldn’t figure things out for himself. But he knew he had to just take a breath. He had to try to work with this if there was ever going to be any hope of getting better. Deep breath. “It’s important because I feel responsible for Evan in that moment. I was the one who introduced him to drinking. I got him drunk enough that he shouldn’t have been having sex with me, and—”

“Okay. You were both drunk. Yes, I’m never advocating for having unplanned drunk sex, or first time drunk sex, or really drunk sex at all, unless perhaps it’s agreed upon beforehand by a couple who understands each other’s limits and has an established routine, and I see how even that can be a total recipe for disaster. At the same time, it was a mistake that both of you made, and it sounds like there wasn’t any coercion, and nothing catastrophic happened, despite the fact that you were both drunk—”

“It’s about the fact that he deserves so much better than me.” Connor could hear his heartbeat in his ears. “He deserves someone who doesn’t have to get drunk to feel safe and calm and unafraid having sex, and he deserved to have sex on a fucking bed of roses with strawberries and champagne or some shit, not to be with me in the back of my goddamn car.” Connor’s sobs lurched him forward, his head in his hands.

“So it’s about you?”

“No.” He rose his head to look at Cheyanne. “No, it’s about Evan, and how—”

“And how you don’t feel good enough. Connor, it’s about you.” Cheyanne took a deep breath, and Connor imagined that she was looking right at him. She was just taking it in. Just turning things over in her head, watching him cry. “He’s told you he forgives you, right?”

“Yeah.” Connor wiped his eyes. “I mean, he doesn’t even seem to think there’s anything to forgive. Like, he just thinks that it was stupid, but almost in a good way. He just feels like, oh, this is what dumb teenagers do, and we did it. It was something we wanted to do, and we got drunk enough to do it, and we did, and he doesn’t regret anything. At least, I don’t think he does. It seems like he sees it as a rite of passage, a very teenaged thing to do, like, a good experience. A funny story to tell. I don’t know.”

Cheyanne laughed a little, but it sounded sort of humorless. “Okay, well, I don’t know if I would go that far with it. He should definitely acknowledge that it could’ve ended badly, and maybe there’s a part of him that doesn’t want to own up to that.”

Connor felt himself nodding, because that was the truth of the matter. That they had been stupid, and everything had been stupid, and they should never have let what happened happen.

“But.” Cheyanne shouldn’t be saying but. She shouldn’t. “It sounds like he also acknowledges that he really trusted you, and that you two have a very special relationship, so it turned out to be not so bad after all, which can also be a valid opinion.”

Connor felt the lump in his throat again, the stupid clawing in his chest. “But it was bad. It was bad for me. It is bad for me. To me, it’s a bad thing. Something bad happened, and I can’t deal with it.”

“It’s about you.”

Connor groaned. Why the fuck was it so hard for people to understand that he was bad, and he felt bad, and things were bad, and he wasn’t trying to be a self centered diva about this or anything else? He was sorry and confused and didn’t fucking want to feel this way and he certainly didn’t want to make things about himself when he’d already done all the irreparable damage he could have to Evan’s life. He was worse. He was worse because now he was making everything about him, and then he was saying it aloud: “I feel worse being blamed for making everything about me,” and he was hyperventilating a little, and he was scared, and he—

Cheyanne just sat there. “Connor, you’re not a bad person, even if you feel bad about things you’ve done, or you make mistakes. You’re worthy of love. You’re worthy of it just as you are.”

What the fuck was this? Was she trying to Good Will Hunting him? He could feel the heat creeping up his neck with the need to be right about something, even if that something was the fact that he was horrible. And then the words were coming out, whether he liked it or not, faster than he could account for them or make sense of them.  “Clearly not. I’m a bad person for ruining Evan’s life—”

“You didn’t.”

“—and making you upset when you try to get me to think of something other than myself, and—”

“Connor!” She was stern, and firm, and stopping him in his tracks. “I’m not saying it’s a bad thing that it’s about you.”

“Well, that’s what it sounded like—”

“I’m asking you to acknowledge that you are the one beating yourself up. You are the one who sees it as a problem, more than anyone. You’re your greatest critic. You are the common denominator in all your feeling bad. It’s your voice that is speaking in your ear over and over again."

“Yeah, and I don’t need therapy to know that.” Connor could feel his face getting redder, angry, heated. “So I’m the most aware of how bad I am. Isn’t everyone? Every single person feels the worst about their own stupid issues. They don’t feel so fucking bad about other people, because they’re the one who has to live with their whole life. Their errors and defects are always there, staring them right in the face, and they can’t hide.”

“Don’t you want to be free? Don’t you want to be rid of that? That feeling that you’re never enough?”

“It’s called smoking! That’s the only way I know to get rid of it. That, and doing a shit ton of drugs.”

Cheyanne stared him down again, nearly rolling her eyes. “Connor, you can start by having some self-compassion. I mean, clearly, your self esteem about this and everything else is on the floor.”

“We know that!”

“I know you know that. I’m trying to tell you that it’s clearly affecting you here, in this way, as well as all the other ways it has in the past. So if you really want to stop it from killing you in this specific scenario, you need to start to work on it in every area of your life.”

“Okay. And how do I do that?”

“Let’s start by working on something you’re good at, that makes you feel successful, a little bit every day. How about writing songs or poems? Just something short each day to remind yourself that you can be great at the things you put your mind to.”

“Being a writer is definitely not the way to feel better. All writers feel like shit most of the time.”

“If you don’t take this seriously, I can’t help you.” Cheyanne’s eyes flicked to the corner of her screen. “Time’s almost up. So, you decide.”

Connor knew she was talking about the session. Time was almost up for the session. Yeah. But somehow he felt like she was saying it on a larger scale. Time was almost up for him, time was almost up with Evan. Everything was going to fall short as long as he thought he was worthless and stupid. He’d fall short as long as he fell short. As long as he told himself he would, he always did.

“Okay. I’ll think about it.”

+

Thankfully Evan had decided to go home while Connor had therapy, so they could each spend an evening alone. Well, Evan could spend the evening alone. Connor had to spend the evening with five family members, eating dinner, starting a puzzle, and constantly dodging interested glances from whoever happened to be looking at him this time.

Everybody knew he liked guys. That wasn’t it. It was that everybody knew he’d loved Evan. That was the thing. Evan was the only person Connor had ever brought home, in any capacity, and it was one of those things where he could clearly tell everyone was trying to fill in the blanks. He knew his mom would sell him out to her parents the moment she knew something was going on, so all three of them were probably equally surprised that they hadn’t known. His dad seemed less interested, more just confused. He stared less, but he looked deep in thought more. Zoe, of course, was the only one he could actually trust with any information, and to her credit, it seemed like she’d stayed relatively tight-lipped, which was definitely an improvement from whenever something had happened in high school. 

In fact, Connor decided he’d give credit to everyone, because, miraculously, nobody had asked him one question. Not even so much as a, “So… Evan…?” Nothing. It was amazing and perplexing. Ultimately, he thought he probably ended up looking as continually bewildered as the lot of them, if not more. 

He ended up in his room, alone, at the end of the night, with nothing to do but face himself. Zoe had gone out with some friend or other, and his mom had only opened his door to say hi to him once, with a quizzical little look on her face, before leaving him alone again with his thoughts. Was there finally some acknowledgement that he was a grown human being instead of a child to fret over, a little gremlin in the house to constantly thwart from doing wrong? Was that what was going on here?

Didn’t matter. Connor was more concerned about the conversation with Cheyanne. Maybe that was why everyone was so interested in him! Maybe his attempts to hide the pain weren’t working. Maybe they could tell he was flushed when he came out of his bedroom, maybe his cheeks were still slightly tear streaked. He thought he wasn’t good enough for Evan. Of course he thought that. Evan had left him. 

He turned it over again. In reality, he'd thought that he wasn’t good enough for Evan long before Evan had left him standing in the street. Had he always acted that way? Had he not held himself to a high standard? Had he created a situation that made Evan want to break up with him because he was always concerned and fucked up about what had happened? Well, he wasn’t always fucked up about it. But he did drink and use a lot more than he should have. His emotions were constantly on the fritz. It wasn’t constant. But it was definitely a little concerning.

He was going in a loop then, upset because he had been upset. Bad because he thought he was bad. A self-fulfilling prophecy of… what? Guilt? Victimhood? Not-good-enough-ness?

And Cheyanne thought the way to break out of this was to write more poems, to prove to himself that he was good at things? To give himself a sense of self-esteem? Why did he have to do that? Why not just mentally convince himself that he actually was good enough, that all of this pain had been for naught? Probably because he couldn’t convince himself of that. His brain would fight him tooth and nail until he disintegrated. It made sense to do something tangible, to collect real evidence.

Connor opened his bag and took out the book of poems. Absolutely stupid to bring with him. Ah, wait. Not stupid. A good idea, because Evan might want to read it. He was secretly sappy like that. Of course he’d enjoy seeing what Connor had to say about him all those years ago, and maybe now. So it was sweet of him to bring it. A good idea. See? Retraining his damn brain already. 

He was good at doing things that Evan would like.

As soon as he thought it, he felt his chest deflate. If he was so good at it, why had Evan left him? Why didn’t Evan think he was good? Connor blinked. He knew that Evan’s reasons for leaving had been complicated. It was really hard to love someone who was constantly hitting the panic button, always on self-destruct. He remembered the fight they’d had a few nights before the breakup, and, well, for Connor to say it came out of thin air, like he always did, probably wasn’t so genuine. It was immature at best. It’s not like he could recall the entire conversation, but he remembered the gist of it. 

You hate me and you wish I were dead. That was what he’d said. Just tell me you hate me and you wish I were dead, and it would make more sense than being treated this way by someone I love. 

Connor sat, silent, and remembered it. Remembered the feeling of being alone, his hands shaking, his body willing him not to say what he was going to say. Not to do what he was going to do. He couldn’t even fucking remember what exactly they had been fighting about. Connor sighed. It was something about Evan not telling his mom, or his friends. It didn’t start out as an argument about Kleinman’s stupid party, but then it became about the party, and all the reasons they had to pretend they weren’t dating around everyone from school, and Evan’s friends, and everyone they fucking knew, and it devolved into Connor begging for some kind of relief. Just wanting to feel like something from Evan made sense, like something was real, even if it had to be something so sad and fucked up. He couldn’t live with the feeling that Evan didn’t make him feel so bad on purpose. That didn’t make any sense to him at all. 

But it was true, he knew now. Evan cared about him. And part of that was caring enough to get rid of him when he was clearly being driven insane by the relationship. Evan loved him and he let him go. Evan loved him. Evan loved him, still. He put pen to paper and wrote.

Saturday the 24th

Christmas Eve. Ten or so days before they went back. Empty time. All the time in the world. For the fear to creep in. For things to get weird. For everything to go to hell. Connor didn’t want to keep going. He wanted to just rest here, with Evan looking stupid in a Santa hat and helping him put lights on the tree and saying that, sure, they could watch Krampus later, even though Connor knew Evan was fucking scared as hell of that thing. He wanted to stop time, in those moments this morning, where he’d come down the stairs and Evan was already here and it felt like it was already Christmas, like this was all he’d ever needed, and even though Evan didn’t know quite what to make of him, this moment was good. 

Connor blinked. Handed Evan another ornament. Zoe shook mistletoe at them and Evan kissed his cheek. He was melting. He just didn’t want these moments to go away.

He realized sometime during the third string of lights that maybe he was so focused on wanting things to stay the same that he could hardly enjoy them. He wasn’t allowing the fish to be in the cup in its own way. He was trying to get it to do something different, something he wanted. To be the same forever. He was scared of change, scared of losing, and suddenly the little tiny bulbs were shaking in his hands and he had to excuse himself to the bathroom.

Upstairs. More empty time to walk and think than going to the bathroom on the main floor. More time to cover for himself, to feel safe as he breathed through the pain. And when that wasn’t enough, he found himself in his bedroom, sitting down, meditating. 

Just breathing. Forgetting Evan. Forgetting the pain. Forgetting the noise. Just remembering himself. Coming back to himself. Breathing. Breathing. And crying, then, a little.

He heard the door to his bedroom creak open.

“Connor?” Evan came closer. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah.” Connor kept his eyes closed, listening to the sound of Evan getting down on the floor with him. “I’m just meditating.”

“You’re crying.”

“Yeah, yeah. It’s fine. This is part of the process. When you need a minute, you take a minute. You let it come.”

And Connor did. He was so proud of himself for not opening his eyes and letting Evan take over this moment for him. He just kept breathing. Kept letting it in. And Evan sat there in silence next to him, and Connor focused on his breathing, and things were good. Things were good there in the silence, and when he opened his eyes again, things were still good.

“Sorry if—” Connor stopped himself. “Well, no, I’m not sorry. I just, uh, I mean I understand if it’s weird to sit there while I meditate. But it’s a part of what I have to do for myself.”

“No. Go ahead. Anytime. I understand.” Evan smiled a little, the corner of his mouth pulling up into a beautiful little dimple. “Plus, you’re cute when you meditate.”

Connor laughed, trying not to sputter too much. He could feel his face flushing a little as he ducked his head. “Thanks.”

“You’ve done really well for yourself. I’m happy for you.”

“Yeah. Things are very different. I mean I’m not trying to talk myself  up or anything. But I’ve been to so much therapy. I’ve gotten a lot of help.” 

“So do you meditate—”

“Every day, at least once. Usually in the morning. But this is just extra, to calm down.” 

“And you’ve kept that daily routine for, what—”

“Three years.”

Evan’s eyebrows raised for a split second like he was going to cough, like he was going to be the one to sputter now. It looked like he was trying to mask his surprise, the way his eyes bugged out. It was like he thought Connor had just started this whole thing recently. “Three years.” His voice sounded… surprised wasn’t the right word. Awed. “And you did that. You’re the one who got up in the morning and did it. Nobody else.”

“Evan.” Connor couldn’t help but laugh a little. “I know. You sound like I’m a celebrity or something. I’m just…” Connor waved his arms, trying to come up with a way to minimize the situation. “Trying to calm down. As one does. When there are too many thoughts in their head.”

Evan laughed a little. “Yeah.” 

“I missed you this morning.” Stupid thing to blurt out. Evan blushed.

“I mean, I’ve been disrupting your routine.”

“Yeah. The more you stay over the more I’m gonna have to ignore you to meditate in the morning. I’ve made a couple exceptions now.” Connor’s hand crept toward Evan’s on the wood floor and it was shocking, how they weren’t comforting each other, or trying to be who they used to be, or cowering scared shitless together against the world, or performing for anyone. It was the most insane thing Connor thought he’d ever felt, the sparks connecting their fingertips when the only thing between them was care, knowing, kindness, appreciation, dare he say love. Okay, so, maybe there were actually a lot of things between them. 

“I like you.” It left his mouth stupidly. Abruptly. As though Evan didn’t know that already. Connor’s cheeks burned. Somehow this was different than every other thing he’d said to Evan up until now. He could say he missed him. He could say he loved him. He could flirt with him and talk about getting back together, but something about this felt so innocent, so juvenile, so vulnerable and unguarded. Somehow, this was the moment when he couldn’t pretend to be anything else. He couldn’t say that it meant anything other than what it meant. He could pass love off as friendly, and missing Evan off as friendly, and flirting off as a friend thing, and the talk about dating off as just mere curiosity. But “I like you” meant exactly what it meant, especially when he said it like he did.

“I like you too.” Evan said it back, in his perfect, quiet way, looking down so that his curls fell over his forehead, fingers loosely laced through Connor’s, toying at the pads of Connor’s fingertips. He said it the way Connor said it. A mirror. A lover. “It would be so easy to fall back in love with you.” Connor’s heart beat in his ears, in his throat. What did Evan mean? Did he mean anything by it? Was he not in love yet? Was he just trying to act like he wasn’t in love yet?

“What should we do about it?” Another dumb question. And why let Evan make that decision?

“Want to keep liking each other?” Evan pulled Connor’s hand from the floor. “And enjoying it?” Connor felt himself nodding. “And just see where it goes from there?”

The thought instantly flooded Connor’s brain with worries. They couldn’t just see where it went. What if it went nowhere fast? Or somewhere bad? What if things didn’t turn out how he thought they would? Or how he hoped? What if “see where it goes” was code for not wanting to commit, and wanting to have all the good parts for even less work than last time, without even dating? But also, what if it was just Evan’s way of showing he cared?

“I don’t think I’m the same as I was.” Connor breathed in deep. “I mean, I think I’ve changed a lot as a person.”

“That’s okay. I’m different, too. But I don’t think that means we can’t like each other.”

“I’m new agey.” The words were coming out faster now, his voice ringing in his own ears. He sounded disappointed in himself. “It’s embarrassing. I’ve been to a fucking Buddhist retreat.” These were reasons not to like him. He was different. He was older.

But Evan played dumb, asking questions, trying to outmaneuver him: “And what was it like?”

“You don’t need to pretend it’s actually interesting, you know.” Connor huffed a small laugh, smiling gently. Evan was still holding his hand. “It was nice. Very quiet. It was in the woods. Lotta trees. Silence for a while. I liked that part.” He shouldn’t have said it but he did.

“Lots of meditating?” 

“Lots of meditating.”

“Then I’m sure you looked cute.”

“Evan, I literally have a patch of grey hair on my head.”

“So? I know that we’re older. That doesn’t make you bad, somehow. I’m telling you, I’m older too.” He sat there for a second, trying to think of something to say, or to confess. “Sometimes I wear glasses.”

“I bet you’re cute with glasses.”

“Sometimes I can’t get it up because of the meds.”

Connor knew that feeling. That was why he’d stopped taking his. The fear of sex actually intensified even more when he knew he wouldn't be able to have it. At least being able to come by himself felt like something that was in his control. He couldn’t deal with the fact that it became controlled by the meds. Fuck. All of this was suddenly so depressing. “Jesus. We’re only twenty-six.”

“Twenty-six in a neoliberal capitalist hellscape.”

Connor stared at Evan out of the corner of his eye, smiling slyly. “You don’t seem that different.”

“And neither do you.” Evan smiled, a little smug. “So I think I’ll take my chances, despite your warnings.”

And this was it. This was the moment. Face to face, they shared a look, and Evan leaned toward him, and he felt himself leaning in, too, and his brain was completely on fire, his breathing heavy. Connor felt dizzy. They were going to kiss. They were going to kiss, they were going to kiss, they were going to kiss, right here, with their fingers curling over the backs of each other’s hands and their skin tingling and Evan’s hair brushing Connor’s forehead and his lips finally those lips that had touched him so many other places the lips Connor had felt on him so sweet the lips he had dreamed about—

Connor startled at the knock on the door. Evan pulled away slowly, as if out of a trance. God, Evan was breathing heavy, almost hungrily, staring at him, staring at his lips, and then he snapped out of it and jumped up to open the door.

“We’re gonna eat lunch, if you want some.” Zoe’s eyes flicked between them, like she was trying to judge whether or not they’d been making out, or fucking. Connor guessed there was something stupid and innocent about the way they looked that seemed unsuspicious enough for her not to tease them, at least for now, and she turned and started down the stairs. Evan glanced at him, in a heap on the floor, his cheeks probably hotter and redder than a tomato. The other boy just grabbed his hand and helped him up, squeezing it tight as they headed down the stairs for lunch.

+

He drove Evan home after it got dark, after they’d watched that stupid Krampus movie in the basement, after they’d both decided it made sense to wake up with their families, no matter how desperate they were to sleep together again. Connor’s bed was so big and cold without Evan, and he told him so, but it was going to be Christmas, and they both had decided they could stand one more day. 

The drive was quiet. He couldn't tell if it was awkward, or just thoughtful, both of them in their own worlds, wondering about the future, thinking about what had happened throughout the day. Connor knew that sleeping apart wasn’t personal, but it somehow felt a little like the spell from before had been broken. They’d been right there, about to touch, and now it was over and it was seared in his memory, but he was also worried that maybe it was already fading, that maybe it hadn’t happened quite like that, that maybe Evan hadn’t been moving toward him, or if he had, that the purpose hadn’t been to kiss him, that maybe he’d just imagined it that way. 

And he knew he was crazy to think that, because of course Evan had meant to kiss him, of course Evan loved him, there couldn’t be any other explanation, but still that niggling doubt was creeping in that somehow he’d misinterpreted, that even Evan’s “I like you” could be something completely different than what Connor had meant by it. And after the moment passed, he couldn’t have fucking found out either, because Zoe just had to be wrapping presents in the basement at the same time that he and Evan had been trying to watch their movie in peace. She was like a hall monitor or something. Fucking cock blocker. He didn’t even want to have sex, just to kiss Evan. Hell, just to be alone with Evan long enough to find out if he was ever going to kiss Evan again.

 
Even with Zoe around, he had still managed to get a few kisses in though, sitting with Evan nearly in his lap, his back to Connor’s chest. Connor had jolted him at the scary parts, laughing when he jumped, and then at some point before the third act, he’d whispered in Evan’s ear, echoing the words the other boy had said to him a few nights ago, “I promise this is all I’m gonna do. We can find another time to figure it out.” And Connor planted a firm kiss. And another, and another. Fuck. The feeling of Evan’s soft skin beneath his was intoxicating. Soon he was nipping, licking, sucking, his hands running along Evan’s sides as the other boy squirmed pleasantly in his lap. It had briefly occurred to him at some point that Zoe might be watching, that, despite the fact that their backs were to her, she might be able to tell exactly what they were doing, especially with the way Evan’s breath was hitching wildly. But, dragging his nose along the other boy’s neck and whispering, “Do you like this?” in his ear, he really couldn’t have been fucked to care. Especially not when Evan nodded, when he almost whined. That feeling of licking and sucking behind Evan’s ear, the pure enjoyment of another person. But again, suddenly, as quickly as they’d gone, the thoughts had started swarming back in. Maybe they just enjoyed the feeling of being close to each other. Hell, of being close to anyone. Maybe they just wanted something easy, no strings attached, fun. Maybe Connor was getting ahead of himself, misinterpreting things. He’d tried to put the thought out of his mind as he bit Evan’s earlobe.

“Connor. Connor! Connor!” Evan’s voice brought him harshly back to the present, to the car. “You’re passing my house.”

“Oh, shit,” he heard himself say lamely, whipping the car around and back before parking in Evan’s driveway. He turned the key in the ignition. “Sorry. I just, uh, totally spaced out. I guess I was thinking—” About sucking your ear, Evan, and my mind was wandering to what it would be like to fuck you again. He couldn’t say that.

“Yeah, I know. About earlier?” He felt Evan’s hand touch his over the center console, and then pull it to him softly.

Connor looked, and there they were again. Evan didn’t mean earlier, like the couch. He meant earlier, like this moment. It was Connor’s turn to move in. It was his turn to make things happen, to lean forward, to be careless and so in love. God, he wanted it to be beautiful. He wanted it to be slow. He wanted it to be right. He wanted it. He wanted it so fucking bad.

His nose was nearly touching Evan’s when Heidi appeared on the doorstep, waving too excitedly to ignore, and then seeming to realize what she was doing, and what they were doing, and pulling her arms into herself, shrinking away, like she was silently trying to spur them on, allowing them to continue. But it was too late. They’d seen her, she’d seen them. They couldn’t be in their own little world anymore. Evan smiled, pinched, awkward, and their foreheads knocked together a little bit, and he pulled away.

Connor swore he felt some kind of static electricity stretch between them as Evan got further and further. It was like a spark that hadn’t been able to fully form, some energy tying them together, like balloons, stuck coming closer and closer until something finally ignited. Evan said goodbye and shut the car door, and his mom waved from the stoop, raising her eyebrows as she said something to her son. Connor felt a little bit in his own muffled world, too busy thinking about how two balloons stuck together by static wasn’t a very romantic image as he backed out of the drive.

Sunday the 25th

“Evan, Evan, Evan.”

Connor could hear himself panting, whining, his voice so far away. And Evan’s hands were on him, rough, intense, strong enough to bruise, to leave a thumbprint on his waist as Evan worked his way down Connor’s body before coming up to bite his swollen lips again. 

“God, Evan,” he thought he heard himself say, falling apart under the other boy’s rough kisses, his skin sucked and bitten, so raw, so beautiful. He wasn’t scared of Evan’s hands going there. Or there. Or there. Evan squeezed his ass hard and he moaned, and then his mouth was moving, licking, caressing, snaking its way down his naked body to the tip of his too hard fucking dick.

“Evan!” Jesus, he was babbling. He could hear himself saying it over and over again, like it was the only thing he could remember, and he was pretty sure it was the only thing he could remember, with Evan’s tongue sliding up and down his vein, over the ridges and all the way up again. So fucking wet. So good. So beautiful. And he looked so sexy, so happy, his hair a fucking sweaty mess bobbing up and down, and him guiding Connor’s fingers to it so he had something to hold onto. Oh, fuck.

“I love you,” he thought he heard in between everything, somehow, even though it felt like Evan’s mouth was still on him, at the same time. “I just wanna make you feel good.”

“I love you, I love you, I love you,” he kept saying back, but he felt like it wasn’t convincing, because he was being fucked senseless, and anyone would say I love you under the circumstances. It wasn’t honest enough, genuine enough. So he kept trying to say it better, more earnest. “I love you, Evan. I love you, Evan Hansen. I swear I—”

“Breakfast!”

Connor jolted awake to Zoe’s knock on his door. Fuck. He was achingly, achingly hard. He wasn’t surprised. He wasn’t mad at himself for it anymore. It was normal. All he was mad about was the fact that he wasn’t going to be able to take care of it. He fucking needed to finish, to imagine Evan’s mouth on him. 

Maybe he should feel bad about that—about the fact that he was thinking totally sentiently now, but still imagining Evan doing lewd shit to him when he didn’t even know if Evan felt the same way. But yesterday, he’d definitely done lewd shit to Evan, right? Jesus, the other boy had been squirming in his arms, practically fucking creaming in his pants.

It wasn’t really the same. Connor knew it wasn’t. But he tried pretty much everything to reassure himself that maybe it was okay, that he wasn’t a fucking weirdo as he slipped his hand into his boxers, already coated all over with sticky precum, enough that he could fuck his fist right away, no spit at all. 

Evan, Evan, Evan. Evan’s mouth. His hand was Evan’s mouth and Evan wanted to do this and make him feel as good as humanly possible. His hand was Evan’s hand and he was sitting behind Connor, whispering in his ear everything he’d been wanting to do to him for the last six years. It was a fucking long list.

Zoe’s footsteps came down the hall and she banged on the damn door again. “Connor, breakfast!”

“Coming!” It came out as a strangled cry that he hoped to god Zoe couldn’t decipher. Fuck. And he was. All over himself, at the thought of Evan. Not anything crazy, either. Just what he’d said the other night. That he promised he’d only do this. And that they’d figure it out later. And that he loved Connor. Fuck. Connor had to get changed. He had to change and not think too much about it. He hoped he didn’t smell like sex when he went downstairs.

+

His mom insisted that they still do stockings, even though he didn’t really feel like they needed to be a thing anymore. He was twenty fucking six. Didn’t really need to be receiving Christmas-themed socks and underwear and deodorant and random chocolates and whatever else his mom thought represented “adult gifts.” He guessed it was nice of her to want to help him out, but he just didn’t feel like it was anything substantive. He could get all of this stuff at the store, whenever he needed it, and it wouldn’t be Christmas themed, and he’d probably be relieved at that. Still, he guessed his mom really enjoyed watching them open things, feeling like they were still able to be kids after all.

Connor didn’t feel like a kid. He felt like a ghost. And unfair, or wrong, or something. He felt like even though he was opening the stocking, he wasn’t who he was supposed to be. He was supposed to be someone for his mom. But he wasn’t. He was just himself, here and not here, in and out of the room somehow, always carried away by thoughts of Evan. He felt so wrong that this was himself. That he couldn’t be anything more. He was supposed to be fully here, fully engaged, fully excited about the socks in his stocking. And he wasn’t that. He wasn’t a perfect child. He felt like he was a bad child. Like he was completely unruly, and wrong. It hurt him greatly, a constant pang, the feeling of not being good enough for his mother, of not being who she might want to see opening presents. He knew she only wanted him to be himself, but himself was this ghost, this specter of himself, consumed with thoughts of Evan and things far away. The room flitted before his eyes, but it was like he was in a dream, watching the colors go by, hearing himself say the rehearsed lines, “Thank you so much!”, “Wow, how exciting!” and feeling like a fake. He guessed that’s what he was. Somebody who wasn’t real, because he couldn’t say what he felt, because he felt bad about who he was, which was someone who was first and foremost obsessed with Evan.

At the end of the night, Connor sat on his bed with his two big gifts—a Kindle and a new wallet, neither of which he really needed, and both of which he sort of felt bad for accepting. He didn’t really like reading on a screen. He knew he’d probably end up leaving it in the back of his closet, or on some long forgotten shelf, after trying to utilize it and failing to get interested in reading without actual pages. He didn’t have the heart to tell his mom that. It wasn't something the perfect kid would say, after all. 

And the wallet was too small for all his stupid shit, all these little trinkets that he put in with his actual cards. He had a credit card, a debit card, an insurance card, an insane number of gift cards. And then there were things like the ticket stubs from one of the last movies he and Evan had seen, that he’d never taken out. His old license behind his new license, because he liked to laugh with his friends about how young he looked back then. A little drawing he’d found on a napkin at a restaurant, clearly done by a kid, that he’d decided to keep. And there, in the middle pocket, between all the cards and receipts and little scraps of paper that meant something, were two pieces of card stock he’d completely forgotten about. There was a stupid little library card. And a checklist. Both handwritten by Evan.

One from when they’d first started getting together, before they’d even really begun dating. A joke that Connor was entitled to unlimited borrows from the Hansen library. Because Evan wasn't comfortable saying that he liked him around, he thought, his stomach turning. He held it gingerly in his hand, running his thumb over the lettering that Evan had clearly taken such care to write in pencil, then outline in pen. He’d given it to him with a few books to borrow, wrapped in a nice bow. The most loving thing he’d ever fucking done for him. Connor wanted to vomit. There was a reason that Evan had done this, and it was that he couldn’t fucking say he cared like a normal person. Connor loved him so fucking much. And Evan loved him, too. He told him that with the books, and the little handwritten library card, long before he ever said it in person. But at the same time, had he ever given him something like this again? Had he ever been as nice as he was before they were dating?

Connor folded the library card away. It hurt to look at. The checklist, he wanted to crumple. It hurt even more. The look of it, the realization of the whole thing, hurt like actual hell. It had been a gift. For some birthday or Christmas that just a few moments ago he could have sworn Evan hadn’t gotten him anything for. It was probably a birthday. Because the gift they'd fought about over the phone the other day, the books he'd been so pissed about, that was definitely for Christmas. So this must have been the birthday gift. 

He was pretty sure Evan had stolen the idea from him. That made him smile, a little rueful. He’d done a similar thing for Evan for his birthday the year before. So maybe it wasn’t sweet at all. Maybe it was just a copy of what he’d done, because Evan couldn’t come up with anything to give him that was original, because he didn’t care enough. Still, it was a gift, and Connor had forgotten it. He’d been accusing Evan of having given him only the used books, but at least he’d thought of something else. Looking at it, Connor felt somehow both correct and stupid. Correct in that Evan’s gifts were stupid. Stupid in that he’d been wrong about the fact that Evan didn’t get him anything ever, even if what he’d gotten him was stupid, or something. He wasn’t sure. He couldn’t win with Evan.

The Hansen Benefits Card. Jesus Christ. What a name, Evan. Connor read down the list of perks. Spa day, a massage, a really nice massage, breakfast in bed, home cooked meal, brains fucked out—Connor laughed—hype man services, proofreading a poem. Each one had three little boxes by it, where he could keep track of his benefits after he’d used them. Connor had never checked a single box, but he did remember eating many home cooked meals with Evan as they’d gotten a little older. Evan didn’t have to worry about nervously ordering pizza, and he was actually quite the cook, even when he had Connor there to stand behind him and distract him constantly. He’d also had his brains fucked out innumerable times. And he couldn’t remember any time at all when Evan hadn’t been his hype man, as much as he possibly could.

What struck him most, he thought, was the poem reading perk. There was so much he’d put out of his mind. That was one of them. The fact that Evan had been there for him through all kinds of first drafts, back when he’d started writing more seriously. Evan had read and reread and discussed ad nauseam. He had listened and cared. Those were the kinds of things that no amount of fighting could take away. Those hours that they spent on the bed, poring over Connor’s handwriting. Back then, Evan had been his lone reader. His sole workshopper. And Connor had probably taken it for granted. As much as he loved Evan, as much as he appreciated the hell out of what he was doing at the time, the fact was that he hadn’t remembered it now until he was reminded. That he hadn’t remembered any of this, any of the good. He’d surfed on for years hating Evan, only remembering his own anger. And even now, he sometimes felt like he was just so excited to see Evan again, to be physically back together with him, that he hadn’t really talked about this kind of stuff, stuff that mattered, since he’d seen him in person. And when they did have some talk that he considered “deep,” or “important,” it was mostly about the past. It wasn't this. But this was the thing he couldn’t replace with anyone else. This absolute care, this poring over the craft with him, this beating it til it was dead, til it was right, for him. That was love. He loved Evan. He wondered if they could ever really get that back.

Connor was dialing for Evan before he even knew what he was doing. “Hey. I missed you today.”

“Can’t go twenty-four hours without me?”

“Apparently not.” Connor felt himself smiling so hard his cheeks hurt. He could hear in Evan’s voice something that was the same.

“How was your—”

“I found the old Hansen Benefits Card.”

Evan laughed a little. He sounded confused, like the words Connor was saying didn’t make any sense. “What?”

“The, uh, the little like, punch card you made me that one time. I think it was for my birthday.”

Silence for a second, Evan breathing. “Oh, yeah.” Another confused laugh, and the sound of a smile returning to his voice. “I didn’t know you kept that thing.”

“Me either.” Connor ran his thumb over the lettering again. “It looks like I never used it. I think I put it in my wallet and just never even thought about it.” He took a deep breath. It always sucked to admit you were wrong. Even if it was about something small. “I’m sorry I got all upset about you never getting me anything.”

“What?”

“I said you only ever gave me those books and then you said you gave them to me because it was something special for both of us to read and write together, and you wanted to gift me something I’d like that was also sentimental, and that already made me look like an asshole for saying anything, but now, seeing this, and the fact that you gave me something I could redeem for cute stuff—”

“Like, what does it say? I forget.”

“Uh, one of the things is that you could fuck me senseless.”

“Jesus, Connor.”

Both of them couldn’t help but laugh. He knew he shouldn’t have said it. It was just what his eyes landed on, or something. Yeah. Or something. Connor cleared his throat. “There’s breakfast in bed, and massages, and proofreading my poems.” He smiled. “I got a lot of this for free.” 

Evan laughed lightly.

“Although I do wish I took you up more on the massages.”

“I forgot about it. You never asked.” Evan took a deep breath. “I would have done it, though. I would have massaged the hell out of you.” He laughed, but his smile sounded more sad, like he was thinking back, thinking too hard, thinking of old times. 

“Can I come over?” Connor blurted it out before he could stop himself, before Evan could get too sad, or undone, or different. 

“Right now?” And now the smile was back again. He could feel it in the way Evan talked. His voice was lighter, or cheerier, or something. More breathy and bright.

“I’ll bring my pajamas.”

“You mean your boxers?”

Connor’s voice was too desperate, too manic, too hurried, too excited to be getting another chance at Evan. “I mean I’ll bring a change of clothes and I’ll sleep over if that’s okay.”

“Okay, Evan. Talk a little faster.”

“Oh, shut up.” Connor laughed hearing Evan make fun of him, already getting up from his bed to grab a bag, tucking the Benefits Card into his new wallet.

+

When Connor swung down to the bottom of the stairs, whirling around the banister like some girl in love in a fucking musical, Zoe didn’t need to ask where he was going. 

“Are you fucking him yet?”

“Didn't I tell you I'm terrified of fucking?”

"Okay." She raised an eyebrow. "You looked pretty close on the couch yesterday."

“Long story.” Connor felt his toes curl as he put on his shoes. “I mean, I already told you about dreaming about him. Maybe I will eventually want to fuck him, but I can’t know for sure yet. I can enjoy thinking about fucking him without actually fucking him.” Connor opened the front door and started to walk out, but he wasn’t sure what to make of things. Something felt totally wrong and shallow about what he’d just said. About what she’d asked him in the first place. Of course he knew she was his weird little sister, so she might be curious about stupid shit like this. But there was something else odd about it. He couldn’t leave it at that. He backtracked into the house. “Also, loving someone isn’t all about fucking, you know.”

Zoe smiled, horribly mischievous. “I know.”

“What?”

“Nothing.” She glanced up at him for just a second. “Just I know you’ll talk about fucking so easily, like you want advice or something, since you’re scared of it.” Her smile quirked as though she didn’t want to give herself away with a full grin. “But, loving someone. I never asked anything about loving him. That's something you brought up yourself.”

“Mmm. Touche.” 

Connor thought he should be embarrassed. But he was just smiling, warm and happy, as he stepped out onto the stoop and into the cool night air.

+

Evan hugged him the moment he stepped in the door. “Merry Christmas.”

“Hi.” God, every time Evan held him it was like coming home. Evan’s face was in his neck and his was nuzzling close, smelling the other boy’s collar, his hair, and it smelled the same as he had all those years ago. He smelled the same. He was coming home. Connor felt he knew how to pray and it was this. 

When Connor opened his eyes, Heidi was standing there, and he jolted a little, but Evan just kept clinging on. And he knew he should be more embarrassed, there in the front hallway of Evan Hansen’s house, hugging him like he’d just come home from war or something, with his mother right there, but he was too happy. It was too right. His body pressed up against Evan’s perfectly, and Evan squeezing him like he loved him and wouldn’t let him go, just like he’d dreamt it so many times. 

“Connor?”

“Yeah?” Evan started to disentangle himself, but Connor was pretty sure he pressed his lips hard against Connor's neck before he did. He didn’t think he could’ve been imagining that pressure there.

“Do you need me to make up a bed for you?” Heidi motioned to the couch.

Before he could say anything, Evan was turning to face her. “Don’t worry about it, Mom. We can just make him a nest in my room.”

“Evan, a nest? He needs an actual bed to sleep in.”

“Well, he can sleep in my bed and I can sleep on the floor—”

At some point, Connor faded away from their argument, into his own head, turning things over. They were arguing about where he could sleep. Hadn’t he slept in Evan’s bed the other day? Thinking back on it, he guessed Heidi hadn’t been home then, so this was the first she was seeing of their nighttime situation. Pieces were falling into place in his mind, quickly, one after the other, like a puzzle. Evan had said he'd told her he was gay, but he hadn't mentioned telling her that they’d been together back then. Although he had said something about how she must've guessed, hadn't he? When Connor had slept over as a teenager, he’d usually slept on the couch, made up with sheets, or they’d just made some excuse about how they were too tired to make up a bed, and they’d convinced her he’d slept on the bare couch, or Evan’s floor, or something like that. 

He couldn’t tell if she was cockblocking them, or just trying to be helpful, or if somehow she knew, and this was all some sort of test. Connor racked his brain, back to that conversation last week. Or had it been earlier this week? Things were getting away from him. He didn’t know what exactly she’d said, or couldn’t remember, but he remembered it had scared him a little, made him uncertain. What had she said? What had she said? “You were so much more than friends” or something like that. Something that sounded like she had to have known.

“Okay, I hear you honey. The fact is, either way, you’d better set up the couch in case. I mean, sleeping on the floor was fine when you were seventeen—” Heidi glanced between them, maybe reprimanding, maybe teasing. “—but now you’re both twenty-six, and you’re going to have a bad back—”

“I know, Mrs. Hansen. I was just telling Evan that I’m getting a whole patch of grey hair.” Connor wrapped his arm around Evan’s shoulders and pulled the smaller boy into his side, smiling, forgetting himself for a moment as he reentered the conversation. And Evan melted into him a little, in a nice way, soft.

But then it was over and Heidi was saying to them, “Just go make up a bed. Appease me, please?” Evan shook his head a little and was off to the linen closet to get some sheets. 

And for a second, Connor didn’t understand why it was such a big deal to her. A second. Because then there it was, the confirmation that she knew something, that something must be going on. 

“So… you and Evan.”

Suddenly he didn’t understand how he could have not seen this coming the whole time. Hell, the other day—was it just yesterday?—when Evan had damn near kissed him in the car, she’d practically given them a thumbs up from the doorway, as if to say, “Keep going, my gay little boys!” And even before that, he was remarkably stupid not to be more self-aware. Of course, Evan’s mom knew they'd been in love. Of course, she knew! How could anyone in their right mind have seen them act the way they’d acted toward each other on a regular basis for those two years and have understood them as anything but? All the memories were flooding back to him, now. All the most obvious times, when it was really more of a courtesy to play into their absolutely stupid lie. A courtesy to who, he wondered. To them? To herself, so she wouldn’t have to bear the shame, or even just the stupidity?

“Connor?”

“I, uh. I’m sorry, I’m just, uh— I know it’s weird, this whole thing. I’m sorry if it makes you uncomfortable in any way—”

“No—”

“I mean, I know I said the other day… I guess I just feel like he needs some looking after right now…”

Heidi didn’t say anything. She didn’t frown. She wasn’t concerned, which Connor didn’t understand. Hadn’t she freaked out the other day when he’d said something similar? Shouldn’t she know that “needs looking after” meant Evan might try again? She must not, because she was almost smiling, this odd, terrible look on her face like she was in on a joke he didn’t understand, and maybe like she pitied him for not being in on it too. “Is that what we’re all saying this time?”

Connor coughed. “I’m sorry—?”

And there was Evan, with the sheets, which Heidi took, still sort of smirking at him a little in that strange way, even as she turned to work on making up the couch. Evan stared between them suspiciously, but Connor couldn’t waste a second in getting him alone, ushering him up the stairs. When the door was shut behind them, Connor immediately fixed Evan with a wide-eyed stare.

“Does your mom know?”

Evan looked like he was being accused of something, or asked some kind of difficult calculus question, narrowing his eyes, with eyebrows involuntarily jumping to and fro. “Know what?”

It took everything Connor had in him not to shake Evan into consciousness. “What do you mean know what?! Know about… this!”

“What is this?” And now Evan was getting this mischievous smile on his face, because he obviously knew what Connor was asking. How could he not? Was this some kind of a joke? Evan wanted to hear him say it? Well, he’d do no such thing.

“I don’t know. Why don’t you tell me?” Right. Turn it back around on him. See how he likes it. “You went to kiss me in the car the other day and I don’t want you to think I didn’t notice.” Connor pinched his lips all together at once. Shit. That was not what he’d meant to say. 

Evan flushed red, scratching his neck, shy all of a sudden. So things were no longer a joke. That settled that. “I, uh. I told her.” Connor thought he felt the world shift underneath him for just a second. “About last time.” He blinked. “After the fact.”

The bile was rising in Connor’s throat involuntarily. "You what?!" Whatever emotions were swirling inside him were so confusing. It wasn’t that he was angry that Evan had told Heidi. Connor actually was a little relieved that she knew. No, he wasn’t mad about that, but he was certainly mad about… something. He tried to pinpoint exactly what was making his stomach churn. And here it was: he was pissed that Evan had waited until after Connor could have benefited from anything remotely normal that might’ve ensued had his boyfriend’s mom known they were dating. And another thing: Evan had specifically avoided the fucking question the other day. "I thought you said she probably guessed! Not that you flat out told her!"

“I didn’t think you would mind—"

"If you didn't think I would mind, why didn't you just tell me?!"

"I guess I got nervous." He said it like a question, like he knew he was in trouble and he was trying to gauge whether that was an acceptable answer.

"Jesus, Evan."

"Look, I’m sorry. I mean, I only told her about last time. I haven't told her about now.” Connor's mouth was dry all of a sudden. “But yeah. She probably is onto us.”

“Onto what?” So now he was taking on Evan’s innocent confusion. He was the one who had to be reminded of what the hell was going on.

“Well, you said I went to kiss you.”

“Well, I mean, didn’t you?” Now Connor was confused. His heart rate was speeding up. He felt like a trapped cat, losing hope, sinking downward into embarrassment and uncertainty. Maybe none of this had happened the way he thought it had. Maybe he was the one who was confused, or in the wrong, or— “Evan, if this is one big humiliating prank staged by you and your mom and my entire family can you just tell me now?” Connor wasn’t sure what the hell he meant by that. It just came out. His closest guess was that maybe he meant it to be funny. Yeah, he thought that’s what he wanted the mood to be, but it came out sounding entirely strangled, the way Evan would sound if he were nervous.

Evan pulled Connor into another one of those tight hugs, buried his face in the crook of Connor’s neck. "No I’m not— I’d never— I’m not messing with you." Evan was quiet for a moment, breathing tickling against Connor’s skin. “I’d never do that to you. I care about you.” Evan’s lips were grazing his neck. His lips were grazing his neck and he was breathing hot breath on him and if he leaned any closer he’d touch him with his teeth and Connor definitely was getting a boner right now, talking about whether or not Evan’s mom knew Connor loved him, and whether or not Evan actually did in fact love Connor, which was probably one of the most serious and terrifying conversations he could possibly be having, which meant that getting a boner right now was actually fucking insane, and he needed to just dissolve into a puddle and die. 

Or, he realized all of a sudden, he could live. He felt his heart inflate, fucking soar like a little balloon. He could live, because Evan cared, and had almost kissed him, and maybe wanted to be with him, or something. He felt like he was inches taller as he wrapped his arms around Evan, holding him tight to his chest, only pulling back to rest their foreheads together for the millionth time, hoping that maybe this time, they’d have something more. They could finally finish the moment they’d been stopping and starting for the past few days.

“So, you really were going to kiss me? I wasn’t wrong about that?" Connor meant it when he said it, but with the way Evan smiled, he realized how stupid it sounded. So he hammed it up just a little, for fun. “Just a shot in the dark?”

Evan’s lips were on his. Evan was smiling and he was smiling and Evan’s lips were actually on his. Fuck. They were both smiling so hard they were just pressing their mouths together more than actually kissing. A tear escaped down Connor’s cheek, and he let it roll all the way down his neck. Didn’t need to wipe it away. The tears were coming, and coming, just little by little, an overwhelming, beautiful thing. And that was okay. 

Evan’s hands were around the back of his head, pulling him down, pulling him closer, and then the other boy’s lips were moving, just a little at first, before dragging Connor’s lip between his teeth.

Connor couldn’t blame himself for the little high pitched whine that escaped him, and Evan pulled away just to look up with the happiest little laugh Connor thought he’d ever heard, a laugh like he was simply in awe, beaming. His thumbs wiped the tears from Connor’s cheeks and he let out another laugh that wasn’t at all funny, just purely happy. “You still like that?”

The tears started coming all over again as Connor took Evan’s face in his hands. It was stronger than anything he’d ever felt. It was remembering. It was pure joy, pure awe, pure want. Just the feeling of needing another person so badly he could hardly breathe, and the understanding that Evan cared about him, had been thinking of him, and remembering him, and was just awed by him. Like he meant more than he could know. It was better, more easily in sync than with any other person he’d ever kissed. It was almost too much to compute.

Connor felt Evan’s tongue on his, lips, teeth. God, he was making too much noise. Heidi could probably hear him. Fuck it. Evan kissed along his jaw, up toward his neck. Connor felt his throat closing in on itself, thought he might not be able to keep breathing at the rate this was going.

“I’ve dreamt about this a lot.”

Evan didn’t say anything, just bit down below the curve of his jawline.

“Fuck. That too.” Connor breathed out as Evan laughed a little, nosing over the spot just below his ear. “I love you.”

Evan pulled away. They were face to face. Through his hazy thoughts, Connor still felt like maybe he shouldn’t have said it. They’d both said it before, sure, but in very different circumstances. He tried to blink away the horniness—the fucking lust—for just a second, to think through the fact that he really knew he shouldn’t have said it, but what the fuck else was he supposed to do? The tears were about to come back, not in a good way this time, when Evan breathed out, looking into his eyes. “I love you too.”

God, Evan was kissing him harder than he’d ever kissed him. He was actually worried his lips might bruise.

“I love you.” Between moans.

“I love you.” Between biting.

“I love you.” With his shaky hands snaking toward the hem of Evan’s shirt, and up, and up.

“I love you.” Evan only separating from him to let him take it off. 

"I love you," tossed back and forth, over and over, until it was the only thing left, until it echoed in Connor’s mind like a truth, like a prayer. Evan dragged him toward the bed, stumbling over each other, never letting go of his face. 

In the shuffle, Connor thought he heard Evan say those words they seemed to say now, those words that gave them free rein to do whatever it was they wanted, needed, to do: “We can figure the rest out later.” 

So, that was it. He loved Evan Hansen. Evan Hansen loved him. In the kissing way, to be exact. There was no more question about it.

The moment Evan’s legs bumped the bed, he was fumbling with Connor’s shirt. And then Connor was unbuttoning his own jeans, and Evan was practically fucking tearing off his damn pajama pants, and it was like… 

It was like doing drugs again, weirdly. It was like, his eyes felt more open, and things were moving slower, and everything was beautiful, like a movie he was watching from some other point of view, for a moment. Everything was beautiful. Evan was beautiful. So, so beautiful. So beautiful he didn’t think about what he was doing, what this might be leading to, even though he knew. It was just him and Evan, tumbling onto the bed like that, together, mouths on each other, necks, and nipples, and teeth, and tongues, and Evan sitting on top of him, so fucking hard through his boxers. So perfect. So beautiful. All in perfect slow motion.

Then, just like that, everything was back to being fast. He was blinking, and looking up at Evan, just helpless, so lost in his eyes, and his long eyelashes, and the way he was looking down at him, so in love with him. And Evan said, “You don’t want to have sex.”

Connor coughed. And blinked. And tried fervently to puzzle through what would happen if he said he did want to even if he wasn’t one hundred percent sure that he wanted to, or that he would be okay with that, or that he could do it without having an actual mental breakdown. What the fuck was he thinking? He couldn’t have sex with Evan, not even with the other boy on top of him, looking so fucking ready. Part of the problem before was that Evan wanted to keep having sex even though Connor didn’t because they’d fucked it up so badly the first time and he couldn’t get it out of his mind but he couldn’t say that because he couldn’t be honest with Evan so they just kept fucking having it and—

Evan snapped him out of his thoughts, repeated to him in an unbothered tone, like he was just requesting affirmation: “You don’t want to have sex—”

“No.” Did he? Fuck. No. Too terrifying. 

Evan smiled. An unreadable smile. Unnerving in a way. Connor wanted to vomit. He tried to remember his therapist’s words, that he was really just concerned about his own issues and that nobody else was judging him. But what if Evan wanted to be more in love than they were or he wanted to show it with sex and then he decided to leave him just as soon as he’d—

Evan’s mouth on his again. “That’s perfect with me.”

"Perfect? What do you mean? Are you just saying that?

“No. I love you.”

“I’m scared you’re going to leave again if I don’t—”

“I love you.”

“I—”

“I love you.”

Evan bent down to him, grinding a little so that Connor couldn’t fucking think. And he kissed him. And kissed him. And kissed him. Wet and sloppy, with fingers dancing over the buds of his nipples, and bites on his jaw and down his neck, sucking at the skin there with a devotion that was almost tender. Connor just let himself moan, eyes rolling back. God, he was hard. And he was happy. And he couldn’t believe this was happening. 

It almost didn’t register when Evan said, under his breath, “Merry Christmas.”

Connor couldn’t hold back his laugh. “Merry Christmas.”

“I already got you something, but this is your extra present.”

“This? What? Kissing?” Connor shut his eyes at a particularly rough nibble near his collarbone.

“Kissing every single inch of you.”

Connor felt their fingers intertwine as Evan moved down his body, staying true to his word as he went.

Monday the 26th

At breakfast, Heidi looked infinitely pleased at having found the couch unused, making these little smiles into her coffee cup when she thought he couldn’t see. Connor felt like death warmed over, and he was sure he looked it too. He had a fucking sex hangover, minus the sex. A makeout hangover. Whatever. From staying up all night, obsessed, addicted—oh, fuck, how long had it been since he’d gone to a meeting?—completely mesmerized with Evan. Just letting the other boy have his way with him. When Evan had gotten up to take a shower, Connor looked in the mirror and thrown on one of Evan’s too-small hoodies from high school, thinking that was a better idea than walking downstairs absolutely spotted with hickies. God, he’d been fucking wired last night. It was like everything had worn off now. He was exhausted, and so happy, and so upside down and nervous to get it right that he thought he might fucking be sick.

He remembered this feeling from the first time around. God, he hadn’t felt it in so long. It’d been ages since he’d dated anyone at all, not even just Evan. There had been someone at the beginning of his MFA program, but that was still a year and a half ago at this point. God, this feeling of being so sick in the morning. He’d forgotten it, but he remembered now. 

When Heidi pushed the pancakes in front of him, he could barely eat. It was this horrible bloatedness and shakiness, some combination of nerves, fear, shame. There were all these simultaneous connections he was making. First, to that first night, and the actual hungover feeling waking up, and the terror, and the sorrow, and the—. He probably shouldn’t think about that anymore. Then, there was the stomach churning at the fear of not being good enough, of making some mistake, and of having to act normal in front of everyone, like he hadn’t just practically had his brains fucked out, without the fucking this time. There was this awful writhing feeling of having opened a can of worms that was now crawling through his insides and along his arms. It was some kind of horrible feeling of failure, or the fear of failure, but also of having already failed, somehow. 

He was sure that part of it came from the neverending and pervasive failure of the first time, which he couldn’t wash away no matter how hard he tried. The rest probably came from all the other things Cheyanne had talked about—how it was always about him, and all his thoughts about Evan hating him were really just about him hating himself. He did hate himself a fair amount when Evan was around. Something inexplicable happened. It was like no matter how much self-worth he’d stored up in the past six years, the concern that Evan could ignore him or dislike him was so strong that he’d do anything to keep it at bay. No matter how Evan showed up, just him existing in Connor’s life was enough to make Connor restructure everything around him, to try to make sure he could keep him. Connor didn’t know why he did this. Probably because Evan was his qualifier. And this was all a bad idea that was going to come crashing down eventually, and he was ruining his life, and all of these things. Fuck.

“What’s going on up there?” Heidi had sat down across from him at some point, watching him push the little bites of pancake around his plate. She sounded like a mother to a small child, asking him what was wrong, as if he could fucking find an answer that would even begin to cover it. He wished Evan would hurry up and get out of the shower. Honestly, he was probably just in there fucking his fist, which suddenly made Connor irrationally angry.

“I don’t know if I can do this.” He didn’t mean for it to come out sounding like that. It just did. 

Heidi raised her eyebrows over the rim of her mug. “Okay. Say more about that.” 

What was she? His therapist? Absolutely not, although he guessed right now she was all he had. He felt the air fill his lungs and then rush out. “I don’t see any point bullshitting you now. I don’t know what all he’s told you, but obviously I couldn’t tell you before, and all this week I didn’t know you knew, and I hope you don’t hold that against me.”

Heidi just nodded, sort of solemn, with her eyes just a little too wide, like she was somehow afraid of what he might say, or uncertain of what kind of help or advice she could give. He didn’t really need help or advice. It would be nice just to talk this out with a third party, or something, although he couldn’t really say that she was neutral.

“I love Evan. I have loved him.” She nodded, encouraging him to go on. “I’ve loved him so much, in so many ways, for so long.” Connor took a deep breath. “Hell, I’m honestly scared of how much I love him.”

“Well, everyone’s a little scared of love, and a lot of people are afraid of getting back together—”

“Mrs. Hansen, I think this is different. I mean, whatever he and I have going on, it takes over everything and ruins my life. I’m scared he’s gonna walk away again and I’m gonna let it destroy me.”

For a moment, Heidi didn’t say anything. Then she reached across the table, placing her hand gently in his. “Listen, we don’t choose who we love. And sometimes things don’t work out. But the beauty of life is that even when things don’t go our way, we just keep living. We always have a second chance and get to try again. We are always strong enough to handle what we’re going through. Always. And we can always learn to be okay no matter what the circumstances or the new normal. We can always get through the hard feelings. They’re only temporary.”

Connor tried to hold in the laugh that threatened to escape him. Did she know who she was talking to? She was literally the mother of a suicidal kid, the poster child for not getting through this, for not realizing situations and feelings were temporary. “I don’t think that helps as much as you think it does.”

“I know a lot about it.” She said offhandedly, before she got up from the table. “About wanting to disappear because of the things that you’ve done, or that have happened to you, or your misfortunes or how tired you are or any other number of things.” She started to rinse her mug in the sink. “I know all about wishing you were dead.”

Connor sat back in his seat. The pit in his stomach weighed impossibly heavier. “What…” He didn’t even know how to form the words. “What do you mean?”

“Well.” Heidi sighed, soaping up the sponge to start washing out the mixing bowl. “When Evan’s dad left, I mean. I didn’t know what we were gonna do.” She shrugged, not looking at him. “I could barely make ends meet and I had this scared little kid—” Her voice sounded choked, in a way that made Connor get up from his seat to walk over and stand next to her. “You just, don’t know what to do in a situation like that. And things that were never an option before suddenly start to seem like an option. And they start to loom—” Heidi sniffed, wiping her eye with her sleeve. “I mean you just start to think, what can I do? What have I got to stay for?” She smiled with tight lips. “I had Evan.”

Connor couldn’t stop himself. He hugged her hard, and she dropped the dishes in the sink with a little laugh. “I love you.” He was crying, tears running down onto her hair. “I love him too. You’re the reason he’s here.”

“You’re—”

“Thank you for staying.” Connor bent his cheek to the crown of her head, just holding her, quiet, so, so grateful.

“Family meeting?”

At the sound of Evan’s joking voice, they both straightened up, wiping tears all too obviously, sharing a quiet laugh.

“Woah.” He sounded more wary, seeing their faces as they turned to him. Connor was sure his cheeks were tear streaked. “Everything good?”

“Yeah.” Connor smiled at Heidi, and another tear fell down his cheek. She moved to brush it away at the same time as he did, which made them both laugh again.

Evan squeezed into his chair at the table awkwardly, seeming to understand that maybe he didn’t need to know.

“So.” Heidi scooted Connor back over to his chair, smiling again. “The elephant in the room.”

“Mom—”

“You all are dating!” She was smiling like she couldn’t contain herself. 

Connor laughed a little, smiling shyly at Evan out of the corner of his eye. He thought that he could feel himself blushing. It was probably too noticeable. “Well, we haven’t really said that…”

“Yeah, um.” Oh fuck. Evan wasn’t smiling at him. Evan wasn’t even looking at him. He was looking at his mom, all fidgety and fucked up and weird, like he felt put on the spot or something. “Can we not talk about this?” 

Connor coughed. Or maybe the word was choked. When he looked up at Heidi, her smile had disappeared, much like his own. He suddenly found that he could eat again. No matter how sick he felt, shoving the now soggy pancakes in his mouth was preferable to having to say anything, or make any noises, or physically exist here in this room with Evan at all. 

Evan was eating now too, suddenly cold and quiet, like he knew he’d said something wrong. And his poor mom was fucking turning around to do the dishes, after she’d made them pancakes to celebrate being in love, which Evan seemed to have apparently fucking forgotten. 

Connor knew he might just be embarrassed, that it might be about the grand gesture, the intensity of his mom’s interest. It probably was. That was probably really freaky for Evan to deal with. But at the same time, it felt like more than that. The way he shut down so fast, so awkwardly, with no explanation. It wasn’t like he didn’t want to talk about dating in front of his mom. It was like he didn’t want to talk about dating at all.

Jesus, tears were making their way up his throat, threatening to slide down his nose and into the syrup. And suddenly he saw this for what it was. It was all just another fatal mistake flashing before him. Evan was going to say he just wanted to hook up. That was what he meant about figuring it out later. But Connor needed more than that and he knew it, and he’d never tried to hide it, and it just seemed like Evan should know. But… well, they always had things like this. Where they thought they saw eye to eye and then they didn’t, really. And Connor had somehow managed to pick himself up before. So he could do it again. He knew he could do it again. He just had to harden, harden against Evan. He felt himself remembering what he’d thought a few days ago. He couldn’t let his guard down. He couldn’t let himself get caught up in expectations. This was his constant flaw. He kept believing that Evan could change, or that they could make it work, when the truth was that they clearly couldn’t, and he needed to fucking avoid Evan, or at least avoid opening up to Evan, like the plague. Fuck, fuck. The fish in the cup. Bile was rising in his throat and he told himself he needed to remember the fish in the cup. No expectations. But at what point did that become toxic to him? At what point did no expectations mean Evan walking all over him, harming him, getting what he wanted from Connor while things never worked the other way around? What if all Connor wanted to do was be around Evan? Was that so wrong? Connor coughed around another bite of pancake, in his own world, passing off the tears that came to his eyes as just a product of the coughing.

Evan didn’t ask him what was wrong, just pushed the food around his plate while he ate.

+

Heidi left the house sometime after she finished the dishes, muttering something about needing to go run errands. And then Evan was apologizing, and hugging him from behind, and kissing him on the cheek, and taking Connor’s half-finished plate up when he nodded absentmindedly in response to a question.

Connor was no longer there. Just his body, sad and floating, next to Evan, who was still in the room, still involved. 

It was only on Evan’s third trip back and forth from sink to table that he finally seemed to notice that something was really wrong, stilling beside Connor, collecting the last plate. Connor didn’t wait for him to ask. He had to get it out before the bile rose too high in his throat.

“Is it gonna be the same?”

Evan sounded so happy, so lightheartedly confused. “Is what— what do you mean?”

“I mean I just heard you tell your mom you didn’t want to talk about dating me.”

The laugh that escaped Evan sounded so empty. “I mean, she’s my mom.”

“Evan, I’m serious.”

“I’m serious, too.” But he was laughing a little, trying to keep things light, with that horrible tone in his voice like Connor was missing the point, or overreacting.

“So, do you want to date?” He tried not to sound so biting, but he couldn’t control it.

“I—” And the confused, scrunched, broken look on Evan’s stupid fucking face told him everything he needed to know. “I don’t know.”

Connor stood up, slamming his chair into the table with a harsh squeak against the linoleum. “Fuck you, Evan. I’m sorry, but fuck you.” He started up the stairs, back to Evan’s room, just to get away, to get solace, to get to something.

And Evan followed him. Of course Evan followed him. “What happened to ‘we’ll figure it out later’?”

“Oh, that’s your secret weapon isn’t it?” God, he could feel the spittle fucking flying off his lip as he reached the top of the stairs and whirled around. “You always fucking think of something like that. Some excuse, some idea, some reason for everything to be exactly how you want it! You’re always up for something as long as it includes running away from anything that makes you uncomfortable! You’re scared!”

“Yeah.” Evan’s voice sounded harsher, more choked, face to face. “I am scared. I’m sorry. I’m scared of what us dating could do to you—”

“Oh my god! To me?! Aren’t you the one who’s suicidal?! But go ahead, yeah, say that to the borderline.” He turned and walked toward Evan’s room. “‘I’m so scared you’re gonna have a breakdown because you get too attached,’ blah blah blah. Jesus. Think of something original.”

“I just know you—”

“No, Evan. You hardly know me at all anymore.” Connor rounded on him in the doorway. “You know that you’re terrified of putting yourself out there in any situation that you don't one hundred percent control. You’re the one who’s scared of that. Not me. Stop saying it. Now, I’m going to take some time to myself and do my fucking meditation, since you’ve made it such a morning to remember. Do you mind if I do it in here?”

“Yeah, that’s fine.” And then, as if he hadn’t already said enough, “I mean, you are still a borderline.” Connor’s hand was on the doorknob, ready to shut himself in, but Evan just had to have the fucking last word.

“Yeah, and you’re still a narcissist.” He didn’t regret saying it, after seeing the look on the other boy’s face. He got the reaction he wanted. “What the actual fuck, Evan?”

“A narcissist? What—”

“Everything has to be just the way you want! If things aren’t the way you orchestrate them, they can’t be!”

“Where is all this coming from?”

“It’s coming from the fact that I’ve told you, extensively, how I felt about being kept a secret, and downstairs, just now, with your mom and I trying to turn over a new leaf, all you can do is your same old shit, which you know from experience makes me feel terrible, but you’re so scared and clammy that you just go right back into your little shell. And then, holy shit, and then! You try to apologize, and I say to you point blank, do you want to date, and you say to me that you don’t fucking know, after you just tried to tell me that the reason you don’t want to talk about it is your mom! You put me through hell. Actual hell, Evan. I have every damn right to ask you to be kind to me, and direct with me, and to choose me. And what do you do? You make every damn excuse you can make to not do those fucking things, and then when I’m upset about it, fucking rightfully so, you turn it back around on me that I’m breaking down because I’m a borderline, not because you have treated me horribly ever since we were kids, to the point that I wanted to die!”

Evan’s voice sounded squeezed so tight he could hardly speak, like he was about to cry or something. “That’s not fair! I’m trying!” 

“How?! What are you trying to do besides whatever the fuck you want—and maybe fuck me up in the head while you’re at it? Genuinely. How can you treat me like this?”

“It’s just hard! For me to be open, and honest. It’s hard for me to know what’s going on for me. I need time to think about these things.”

“I know.” Connor leaned on the doorway, suddenly a little calmer, more calculated, now that Evan was fucking breaking a sweat. “And when that’s not the issue, you’ll come up with another excuse. And another. Until you go home for spring semester and it’s all fucking over anyway.”

“Well, yeah, what did you think we were gonna do? Shack up and get married?!”

“Jesus, Evan. Nobody fucking wants to be married at our age, with how fucked up we are. But you’re supposed to love somebody enough to share a dream together. I know all this is fucking foreign to you—”

“Shut up. Why are you telling me how to feel, after I let you into my house, and make out with you, and sleep together—?”

“Oh, because it’s such a burden to get exactly what you fucking want with no strings attached.” 

“You don’t get to fucking tell me how to feel—”

“You defensive prick. You don’t know how to feel. You’re inauthentic! It’s what made you a bad writer! That’s why you were so embarrassed when you wrote your stupid letters! You couldn’t even say what was true to yourself. You couldn’t even be yourself to yourself!”

“I’m myself to you.”

“Yeah, once in a blue moon.”

“Like last night?” Evan bit back, looking him angrily in the face, breathing hard. “You liked that didn’t you? Would you believe that’s the real fucking me?” He stepped back a little, took a deep breath, as though embarrassed at having gotten heated. “I want to be myself with you more.”

Connor sighed, moving fully into Evan’s room. “Evan, just leave me alone.” He swung the door halfway shut. “I mean, seriously, I love you. I loved you. I was groveling at your feet for years. I have nothing to gain from someone who can’t even offer me himself, consistently.” He held Evan's gaze for a moment before pushing the door shut. “I’m sorry. I gotta calm down. Get my fucking head on straight.”

He wasn’t sure as he closed the door if Evan’s stare was so empty because he was sad enough to be devoid of compassion, or if he was just completely numb, just blank. Connor turned the lock.

Inside Evan’s room, his head felt light, like it was going to just float off his shoulders and away, a little balloon. He slumped down onto Evan’s bed, crashing, tired. He was alone. And maybe he’d jumped to conclusions or been too biting or not waited long enough for Evan to come around. He just didn’t deserve the way that Evan had treated him, now or then. And it was like the longer it went on, the more times Evan did something stupid, the angrier he was. Six years, and he was at the point where a few words in the wrong tone from Evan had caused him to have that huge outburst, which he wasn’t proud of. And they were causing him to be so angry still, now, to ball his fists and start in on a silent scream, shaking, just fucking shaking. God. He hated Evan. He hated him and he knew the idiot was probably going to try to apologize and win him back and fucking gaslight Connor into thinking he wasn’t being accepting enough when really the problem was that Evan didn’t want a relationship and Connor didn’t accept being treated like an afterthought, like dirt. Poor Evan. Poor Evan. Everything always all about him, and how much he needed everything to go his way. Jesus. Connor wanted to throw something, to hit a pillow, or scream into one.

He tried to meditate, but when he sat on the bed with his back against the wall, he could hardly hold himself up. Instead, he laid down, closed his eyes to get into a peaceful headspace. And then he fell asleep.

+

It must have been afternoon, the way the sun was coming through Evan’s curtains. Damn. He hadn’t meant to sleep that long. He felt a slight twinge of guilt in his gut at the realization that he couldn’t remember whether Evan had been wearing regular clothes or pajamas this morning. He wondered if he’d left the poor kid out in his damn boxers for hours and hours. Probably.

He wanted to vomit, recalling what had happened earlier. It wasn’t his fault, but he should’ve handled it better, and Evan was sure as hell going to blame him for everything he’d said, and hold it against him forever, and they wouldn’t be able to ever make it work because they’d both always be thinking about how they constantly hurt each other. Connor put a pillow over his face and just let the tears come, the sick feeling in his stomach moving to twinge in his heart, that dragon inside the cage coming to life, trying its best to be heard and recognized within him.

Connor sank into the bed, wishing everything would just go away, that they could go back to last night, and wondering why the hell he even wanted that. Why did he want that with someone who hated him, and wanted to hurt him so badly? He shook his head. No. He knew Evan didn’t hate him. He loved him. Only it didn’t make any sense at all because you couldn’t love someone you didn’t even know, and you couldn't love someone you didn’t even support, or treat right. How was any of this possible?

Something spoke from deep inside him then. The recollection of the truth. What made everything make sense, what worked with all the evidence, was that Evan was scared. Evan was afraid of so many things that he could hardly even begin to treat Connor right. That was the sad truth. He was so afraid of misstepping that he refused to step at all. It was true. It didn’t make the things he did right. Didn’t make it okay that he’d pretended not to be dating Connor all that time ago so that he didn’t have to deal with any external consequences, or judgment, or questions from other people when they ended up breaking up. But it did soften Connor toward him. He really was like a hurt cat. He would do or say anything to defend himself, to escape the constant beatdown of Connor’s affection, and desire, and care, and expectation. He would do anything to avoid anybody expecting anything of him, because it threatened him. And that didn’t have to be a shameful thing. It was just the truth. Just true. Evan couldn’t be what he needed because Evan was so afraid of failure, and getting hurt, and everything. He needed to keep everything close to his chest, couldn’t let anybody in. Connor felt bad for him, but he knew he couldn’t help him. 

Instead, he pulled out his phone, opened his notes app, and started to type: Snakes in their defensiveness forget to unwind. Birds that hesitate to spread their wings get left behind. Cats that are injured will scratch when provoked. Dragons in cages just scream, scream and choke.

He always did this on the first draft, making these stupid, juvenile rhymes that he would later get rid of. It sounded like the beginning to some fable that wasn’t interesting or even scary at all. Connor tucked his phone away and headed for the door, stopping with his fingers on the doorknob to steel himself against whatever was to come. 

“Connor?”

A cough escaped his throat involuntarily as he jumped away from the voice, coming from beneath the doorknob, a little to the right. “Evan?”

“Could you not open the door? I’m leaning on it.” 

“Uh, okay. Do you want to move, or—?”

“Can you just sit down, maybe? Like we can just sit down together, on opposite—”

“Yeah.” Connor settled in against the door, his back to Evan’s. It was quiet for a few moments. He didn’t know if he wanted to break the silence for himself or for Evan, to give him an easy head start. He didn’t decide to so much as the words just started to spill out of his mouth. “How long have you been sitting out there?”

“Pretty much since you went in.”

“Uh, and how long has that been?”

“A few hours.”

“Oh. Okay.” He wanted to ask why the hell Evan would want to sit outside his room for a few hours, but he figured that neither the snarkiness nor the honesty would go over well. It didn’t seem to with Evan. He ought to just take the potential sign of concern and care as a positive thing and run with it.

It took a little while longer for Evan to come up with anything to say. “Look, I’m sorry.”

And that was a start. But not a huge start. Evan had said he was sorry a thousand times before, and nothing had changed. And then despite how he had treated him and all that Connor had put up with, he had still left Connor standing alone in the snow, et cetera et cetera and on and on…

“I see what you mean. It’s not fair to expect things to be the same. For me or for you.” Oh fuck. Here it was. The weird, gaslighting speech about how if Evan wasn’t allowed to act the same, neither was Connor, when Connor was literally just asking him to make the relationship official and say he was dating him, and not hide. He’d forgotten about these wonderful little gifts, the turning it back on him. He should’ve seen it coming, because it was so fucking typical of Evan, with his constant deflection. “I mean.” Evan fidgeted against the door. He sounded like he was struggling to put the words together. “I mean I want to be with you, and I don’t mind it being known by your family, and I never have—” True. Evan had always been fine with people in Connor’s life knowing, just not people in Evan’s own life. Which maybe made it worse. “—and it’s weird having my mom hear all about it, but I get that that’s what you want this time around, and I’m okay with that. I mean. I know that I have to be okay with it if I want you, and—”

“Evan?”

“Would you just let me get through this apology?”

Connor took a breath. “Yeah.”

“Okay. Thank you.” Evan sighed, and then he was quiet. “I understand that I wasn’t a good partner last time in a lot of ways. And I understand that I started to drive you crazy when I wouldn’t pay attention to you or tell people we were dating and stuff like that.” 

Connor couldn’t help but roll his eyes. As if anyone could stand to be treated that way for months into years without being driven crazy. 

“And I understand that I’m still afraid. I’m afraid of a lot of things. It’s the way I am. And I know I’m trying but I have to try harder if it’s going to be acceptable to you.” 

That last part earned another eye roll. Acceptable to Connor. Jesus Christ, the bar was on the fucking floor. All he had to fucking do was be a kind person and treat Connor as though they were actually dating, or maybe as though he actually cared at all and wasn’t just using him for a fuck or a makeout session. It wasn’t rocket science, and it really shouldn’t be that difficult. Fuck, this was all going awry. They shouldn’t be together. The whole thing was going to crash and burn enormously if Connor didn’t push him away now. Because he knew Evan. The idiot would keep trying to get closer knowing full well that he couldn’t meet Connor’s needs or be a good boyfriend or even come close. Just because he wanted Connor. And Connor wanted him, too, which was the worst part. The part that made everything so fucking complicated. Connor needed to stop wanting him, because Connor was the only one who had the power to control the outcome of the entire scenario, because Evan couldn’t just keep his common sense and realize that nothing was going to work out between them. Connor had to be the responsible one.

“Connor?” Evan’s voice brought him back to the room. If Evan had been talking, Connor hadn’t heard a word of it.

“Huh?”

“Did you hear what I said?”

“Which part?” Fuck. He sounded so stupid. “I, uh, spaced out, kinda.” Evan was quiet for a few seconds. Great. So now he was mad. 

Evan laughed. Okay, so maybe not mad. “That’s good anyway.”

“Why?”

“Because whatever I said, it didn’t really make sense. I’m no good at this. Fuck. Let me try again. Hang on.” Connor could hear him breathing deeply, pressing his back into the door. “I guess what I mean to say is just, sorry. I’m sorry for what I put you through. I know I can’t fix what’s happened and I definitely can’t understand how things were or have been for you. If it helps, I’ve beat myself up over it a lot.” He sighed heavily against the door. “And I’m really scared. I mean, truly, it’s like I don’t know how to operate without hurting you. And I want to learn, I really do, but I just don’t want either of us to go through it again.”

Connor tried to let that bit about this being an equal problem for both of them just roll off his back, unnoticed. 

“It’s not you. It’s not like I don’t want to be with you. But I’m so scared of hurting you and I’m not stupid. I know that I do. I know that I have. And I just care about you so much and I don’t want to see you hurt anymore. Especially not because of me. I really love you.” Evan’s voice was so tight and pinched, like he was almost going to cry from frustration, and the horrible feeling of not being able to do what he wanted, or communicate what he wanted, or have what he wanted. “And I know it sounds terrible and like I don’t try hard enough and like I don’t care or something, but it’s the opposite. I care so much and I love you so much and I just don’t even trust myself because I know I need to be extra careful not to hurt you and right now I’m barely hanging on myself.” He let out a deep breath. “I mean, seriously, who am I kidding? I called you asking you to literally keep me alive. I can’t heap more and more of that shit on you now, especially not when you want something from me, and I need to be better, and I need to deliver—” 

Evan was crying, with a squeezing sound in his throat, and thoughts were fucking flying through Connor’s mind. He shouldn’t comfort him. Evan should be able to take care of himself. He shouldn’t open the door. He shouldn’t swoop in and rescue him from this moment. There was something he’d learned in therapy. Fuck. The phobia of inner experience? He couldn’t exactly remember. Something about how people needed to go through uncomfortable emotions so they would eventually learn to regulate through them instead of fucking killing themselves or whatever. Here was an opportunity for Evan to learn that. Connor couldn't stop himself from getting up and opening the door anyway.

“Connor, stop! No. Stop.” Evan was curling away from him, toward the door’s hinges, but he sat down and put an arm around the smaller boy easily. “Don’t help me. I don’t want you to help me. I’m doing the thing where you got upset at me and then I somehow end up being the one crying and you end up comforting me. See?! I’m doing it! I’m hurting you right now!” Evan was shaking, almost convulsing. Like he wanted to shudder out of his skin, or shake himself hard enough to pass out and not wake up.

With self-hatred. 

Connor didn’t have any inkling of the idea until it popped into his head, and once it was there he knew it was true. Because he’d been there, too. He knew the that specific look in his eye, the feeling, the shaking. He just held Evan tighter.

“Connor, seriously, you— you can’t be here.” Evan was coming down from the worst of it, wiping his eyes and nose, fucking sloppy as hell, voice slightly shaky with his ragged breaths. “Because,” he said softly, “because I r-read on-online that it’s easier to talk about serious things if you’re— if you’re not looking at each other.”

“Okay.” He kept himself almost quieter than Evan. “I’ll look across the hall.” He couldn’t believe it, but as he let go of Evan and faced forward, he felt himself fucking smile. And he felt Evan soften. Slowly sitting upright, and then, to his surprise, gingerly leaning his head on Connor's shoulder.

“I’m sorry for being this way,” Evan whispered. 

“You don’t have to say you’re sorry for that.”

“It’s embarrassing.” He was almost rubbing his face into his shoulder, like they were in love, hiding himself in that silly way where there was nothing really to hide. 

“You can say you’re sorry for a lot of things, but don’t apologize for that.” Connor squeezed Evan to his side. “I love you. I’m here for you.” And Evan might have been right. Sometimes it seemed like all he ever was was here for Evan. There was a lot to think about. He didn’t want to think about it right now, or fight anymore. 

His fear tried to swim above the fog, the fatigue, to tell him that this was just another one of Evan’s tricks. He was getting him to feel sorry for him so that he wouldn’t bring up any of the things he was angry about anymore, so that Evan would get away scot free, like always. Connor thought he could resist those ideas, thought he could give Evan the benefit of the doubt. More thoughts came then, that the benefit of the doubt only lasted so long before something else took over, the keeping score, the counting of wrongs.

“I’m tired,” he heard himself saying. “I just slept in there for fucking hours, and I’m still—”

“You were sleeping?”

“Yeah, what’d you think I was doing?”

“I don’t know, plotting ways to kill me? Or just trying to annoy me?”

“What?”

“Like, to see how long it would take me to break down and start whining for you to come out.”

Evan had had that thought? That was a thought that had gone through Evan’s mind? And then he’d been prideful and stubborn enough not to actually give into what he thought Connor wanted? Jesus. All he could say to that was “It’s not always all about you, Evan.”

The other boy sighed into him, deflated. “I know.”

“This has been a lot.”

“I know.”

“Wanna watch a movie or something, lay on the couch?”

“You mean you don’t want to completely get rid of me?”

Connor dragged Evan up by the hand and started down the stairs, not wasting another word.

+

Evan was asleep on Connor’s chest when Heidi walked in with the groceries. Seeing them there, some stupid Hallmark Christmas movie on in the background, she smiled and shrunk down into a crouch, like she was trying to close the front door as softly as possible, with all those bags in her hands. Connor tensed to rise from the couch, but she just motioned for him to stay where he was, still smiling softly at him. He felt himself smile back a little as he looked from her down to Evan. 

Evan. Completely knocked out, sprawled every which way, partially between his legs, partially on top of him. Connor had been running his hands through his hair, gently scratching his scalp. Something they always used to do. It was sweet how he’d fallen right to sleep. Reminded Connor of when they were kids. When Evan used to say he slept better next to him. That was so long ago now.

Before they’d broken up, they’d really stopped being tender like this. It was all about sex, and love, and serious things like telling people and treating each other better and when to meet up and how often to call and if they could make distance work for them. But when they’d broken up, this was the stuff he’d missed. Just being close to someone. Feeling safe and complete. This quietness around each other, this calm. 

Of course, Evan was probably just emotionally exhausted from having a giant argument. Nothing much to see. He wasn’t asleep because he was really that comfortable with Connor, or because he should be, or because they should be together, or would be good together, or anything of the sort. He shouldn’t get his hopes up. The fish in the cup. The fish in the cup. That’s what he had to remember every day. Just let Evan go. Let go of any hope for the relationship. Let it be exactly what it was and nothing more. That’s all he could do, all anyone could ask of him. All he could hope for, for himself.

He ran another hand, so, so lightly, through Evan’s hair, and then Heidi came back into the room and he tried desperately to pretend that wasn’t what he’d been doing. But she smiled at him again and he smiled sheepishly back and in an odd way, between the two of them, there was no reason to hide. He felt his heart twinge as he motioned Heidi over. He didn’t want to start the conversation again, not so soon, but he just couldn’t stop himself from saying what he needed to say. 

When she reached him, he whispered low, and he wasn’t entirely sure what was going to come out of his mouth until it did: “I’m sorry about earlier.”

“It’s okay.”

“Do you think it’s weird that I’m concerned that he doesn’t want to tell—”

“I always knew.” 

Connor took a sharp breath in, and Evan squirmed slightly.

“I always knew, what was going on,” Heidi said again, a little louder, more resolute. “I mean, come on, what was I  supposed to think?” She laughed a little, just a few huffs of air. “Sometimes I wondered why he didn’t tell me. Whether he didn't care about our relationship or didn’t trust me, or something.” Heidi clasped Connor’s hand in both of hers for what felt like the millionth time that day. “And then I realized. Him not admitting it, or not wanting to talk about it, was about him.” She blinked at Connor. “It was about him, not about me.” And she pulled him in and kissed his forehead, and got up, and walked away. 

Yeah. He knew it was about Evan. He knew it was about Evan. But even if that was the case, and he couldn’t do anything to change it, didn’t he deserve different? Didn’t he deserve better? It didn’t matter if that was Evan’s deal. What mattered was whether Connor could handle it. He wasn’t Evan’s therapist. If Evan hadn’t changed in six damn years, that was for him to worry about, not for Connor to struggle against. There was no reason why Connor had to endure being treated in the same way that he had, luckily, escaped, when Evan had broken up with him. There was no reason to go back to this. There was no reason to give Evan chances, especially if Evan wasn’t going to change or didn’t know how.

Jesus, maybe Heidi didn’t have all the answers, but at least she had an inkling of what things were like. For a moment he felt that she was the only thing keeping him sane. Without her, Connor leaned into the side of the couch and dozed. When Heidi came back to sneak a picture of the two of them, he was already asleep.

+

Awake again, covered in a blanket. A steaming bowl of soup on the table beside him. No more Hallmark movies on the TV. No nothing. Just quiet. Evening. God, he’d slept the whole day away. But he guessed it made sense for having stayed up all damn night. Evan came in with a grilled cheese sandwich on a plate.

“Oh, you’re awake.”

“Yes, chef.” Connor looked Evan up and down with a laugh. 

“I don’t know how to make much, but I guess it’s an okay peace offering.” Evan shrugged, sheepish, as he bent down to place the sandwich on the table, at eye level with Connor. “Sorry if I woke you up with all my rustling around.”

“You’re good.” Evan looked so gentle, so bashful, like he was trying so hard. And despite all best efforts, he was still beautiful. Beautiful and quiet, the way Connor wanted to remember him. And then the words were tumbling out of his mouth. “Can I kiss you?” Connor didn’t think for a moment about what he was doing. He just took Evan’s chin in his hand as the other boy nodded in surprise, and slotted their lips together, soft and quiet, like things used to be before they turned to shit. And when he pulled away, he found himself pulling Evan right back in. Not for something messier or wilder or more or less important or impactful. Just for the same lovely kiss. Quiet, like they’d been together on the couch. Quiet and kind. Forgiving. With space to breathe. Connor pulled away and moved to focus on the soup, recalling the ramen he was eating when he’d first heard from Evan. This soup was the same, his tears mingling in with the broth. Evan hovered nervously there beside him, probably concerned and afraid that he was crying. Oh well, let Evan worry. There was nothing Connor could do but cry. Cry for the memory of how things were before, cry that they couldn’t go back, cry, cry, cry, over and over again. 

Evan didn’t say anything. He just stayed beside Connor. Just hovered there with him. And then, somehow, slowly, the hovering became sitting. It was like staying when Connor assumed he probably wanted to run gave Evan some kind of power over his own body, over his mind, over his agitation, until it stilled into something that was no longer significant, and Evan became someone else. Firmer, stronger, sitting straighter, suddenly more secure, somehow. That person that Connor wanted to find, the one he’d tried to make real over and over again. A version of Evan that was himself, but safer. Himself, but less in his own head. Himself, and able to be with Connor, to be there for Connor, at the same time, in a way that didn’t take away from who he was. And that version of Evan just sat there and rubbed his back. Connor could feel his thumb through the fabric, drawing little arches, reassuring him, firm and calm. Much calmer than Connor had assumed he’d be.

And then he was whispering about how things were going to be okay, about how he just had to let it out, just had to feel the feelings. What the hell was Evan saying? What the fuck? Was he doing this because he’d seen it work on himself when Connor held him just a few hours ago? Was that it? So now, since Evan had sat with his discomfort, he was suddenly the expert on things, interpreting that it would somehow work for everyone? How could things be okay? How could any of this work out? It didn’t make any kind of sense, the fact that they had to fight to bring out the Evan Connor wanted, whether it was the Evan that Connor had accidentally taught him to be, or maybe even the old Evan, that perfectly solid rock through the worst of the emotional storms.

The fish in the cup didn’t always mean letting go. It came to his mind almost violently, so that he dropped the spoon he was holding into the bowl with a short, sharp clang against the rim. The fish in the cup was about surprises, and he was surprised by this. He was confused, and unsure, and nothing made sense. It was about surprises that you didn’t think could happen. It was about seeing the world in ways that melted away common perception. It was about letting go of what you thought could or would happen and allowing what really did happen to actually just be.

Connor blinked. Once, twice, and then he swallowed, wiping the tears from his eyes. Something was happening. Something he couldn’t control if he tried. Something he didn’t understand or know the outcome of. When he raised his head to look at Evan, the other boy was already watching him. 

Then Connor spoke, startling Evan out of his intense stare. “I think, I just had this fantasy, that at some point, everything was perfect, and easy. And that we could get back to that, and have it again.” He took a deep breath, looking Evan directly in the eye. “I think nothing ever was actually as easy or as perfect as I remember it, but somehow I loved it all the same.” He felt the corner of his mouth start to quirk up into a lopsided smile. “Nothing is effortless, but some things feel sort of that way, sometimes, like right now.” Fuck. He was starting to get agitated, to make no more fucking sense, but somehow Evan was nodding anyway. “And I think maybe part of it is knowing when to just let it be.” Connor reached toward Evan and intertwined their fingers. “I just want everything to be easy, and perfect.”

“Well, unfortunately, I am just a person.” Evan brought Connor’s knuckles to his lips with no hesitation. “And, even if sometimes you may not want to admit it, so are you.” He smiled. “I know it would take a lot to fix what happened. I don’t know if I can promise to return anything to its original state, or if either of us really want that, because, yeah, there were a lot of things that clearly weren't working.” He took a deep breath. “But I can be here for this, now.” There was his thumb again, running over the back of Connor’s hand. “And I can try to let the effortless moments be more effortless, and more often.”

“And I can be there for that.” Connor smiled, scooting closer to Evan. “I think I can agree to not meddle so much, to enjoy seeing what comes of it.” 

“Like, I just want this to be a test run, right now. We can call it whatever we want with whoever we want but I don’t want it to end all the same horrible ways.”

It was a hard thing to swallow, but Connor got it. He really did. He just wanted everything to be simple and easy, but things were so fragile right now. Hell, they’d only been in contact for, what, twenty days, maybe? Who was to say if they could make it work? Clearly, it wasn’t working right now. They’d just kissed for the first time last night, and now all day they’d been butting heads like hell. But Connor so badly wanted to believe that it was just because they were falling back into old habits. He wanted to watch them shed those issues and grow into what they had spent the last six years becoming. He wanted their new selves to complement each other. He wanted good things to come true.

“Connor?”

“Yeah.” He shook himself out of his thoughts. “Yeah, I agree with you.” He squeezed Evan’s hand. “I mean, it’s been six years. We’ve grown. We’ve changed.”

“I sometimes struggle to get it up—”

“Because of the meds.” Connor laughed. “You literally told me that the other day.”

“Fuck. There goes my whole spiel about how getting older doesn’t mean being worse for each other, it just means being different.”

Connor smiled. “You’re right though. There’s gonna be some growing pains. And I do want to stick around and see what happens. Just, let it evolve as it does, naturally.” He leaned over to kiss Evan, melting toward him, a hand coming to rest on his hip. “But I gotta be honest.”

“Hm?” Evan pulled away, looking him in the eye.

He played it up, winking salaciously. “Doesn’t seem like you struggled to get it up at all to me.”

Connor’s laugh was muffled by the sound of Evan whacking him with a couch pillow. “Shut the fuck up,” he thought he heard Evan say between laughs. And he loved it. When things were light like this. He could keep things light. Connor went in for another kiss. He couldn’t help himself. Just keep things light.

+

“Where the fuck have you been?” He hadn’t even made it in the door yet. 

Connor sighed as he stepped over the threshold. “I think everyone on god’s green earth knows where I’ve been.”

“Well, you could’ve at least said something to all of them, because they’ve been fucking asking me.”

“Zo—”

“I’m not mad, but—”

“You clearly sound mad.” Connor shucked his bag onto the floor.

“But I just wanna know what’s going on. Everyone else clearly wants to know what’s going on. I don’t know anything except the fact that you’re having wet dreams about your high school sweetheart that literally left you in shambles to the point where we had to take you to the ward—”

“Zoe. Jesus. I’ve been sleeping over at his house.”

“Oh, so now you’re sleeping together?” She looked so fucking angry, her hands above her head, like his mother used to do when she got so exasperated that he was using, she couldn’t find a way to express herself.

“No. Just sleeping over.” 

“In his bed.” 

And the staring contest began. But the moment Zoe tilted her head down to really bore into him, he knew he was fucked. He felt his mouth twisting up into an involuntary smile of defeat, and she rolled her eyes. 

“Yes, in his bed.” It came out begrudgingly, no matter how obvious it was.

She smiled too, then, teasingly, satisfied, softening almost immediately. “See? It’s not fucking hard to just tell the truth.”

“It’s not entirely your business.”

“It definitely is.”

Now it was his turn to roll his eyes. And then to start thinking something before he immediately blurted it out without assessing whether that would be a good idea. He never planned on telling Zoe this type of shit. It always just came out. “I mean, we have been kissing though.”

“Of course, you’ve been kissing.” She said it like it was obvious, and when Connor didn’t respond: “What, do you think you actually need to tell me that? Do you think I’m blind?”

“Well, no, but—”

“Okay. Do you think I actually didn’t see you when you were sitting on the couch practically fucking each other’s—”

“Oh-kay.” Connor stretched both syllables to their limit. “That’s enough.”

His sister laughed, shaking her head and resetting, apparently deciding she’d better see the conversation through despite his stupidity. “So how’s the kissing going?”

“Honestly, not great.”

Zoe slumped down to sit on the staircase behind her, head falling into her hands. “So you waited this entire conversation, until I asked, to tell me—”

“I don’t even really know what’s going on. We’re just trying it. Like, test running it or something, we decided.”

“You’re saying you’re not dating. So you mean Evan decided.” It was horrible, the way she corrected him without any damn remorse.

Connor could feel the grimace on his face starting to give him away. “It’s gonna have to be slow.”

She shook her head, a little exasperated again. “You know, when I saw him the other day, I felt, I don’t know, encouraged. Or like, like I thought maybe things could work out, and I was hopeful for you for that, and I thought, like, somehow, it sounded like he was getting a hold of himself, and starting to realize how special you are, or something. I didn’t think he was half bad, but now—”

“Is that what you were talking to him about? The other morning?”

Zoe’s eyebrows rose and fell in quick succession, like a realization was washing over her, some kind of understanding that she’d have to be more careful of her whereabouts. “Uh, yeah. And I should talk to him again—”

“Don’t—” Connor sighed, trying to stop himself from getting too angry. “Please don’t.”

“He needs to get it through his thick skull that you are not just some person.” She shook her head, still reeling a little. “With everything you’ve been through, where the two of you are, you’re either his soulmate or he needs to hop the fuck off.”

Connor’s throat tightened at that word, soulmate, and it was like Zoe knew she’d gone and said something too, too much, the way the air felt sucked out of the room. He really just wanted to cry, picking his bag back up off the floor, starting to make his way to the stairs. Soulmate, soulmate, soulmate. Was she just being stupid? Or was that seriously what other people saw? Soulmates, or hop off. Were those the two options? Jesus Christ. What a way to make something that was supposed to potentially be simple, and slow, to be a surprise, and an exciting thing to watch unfold, feel like life or death, and probably an ending. Evan was going to leave if they weren’t fucking soulmates? Or was it going to rely on him? He was going to have to leave Evan if they weren’t soulmates? Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. He made his way past Zoe up the stairs, not really hearing her noises of protest, and sorries, and the backtracking to try to make it sound like this wasn’t the end all be all, and he didn’t have to be afraid. God. He was so afraid. He mumbled goodnight, or sorry, he was just stressed, or something else that seemed satisfactory enough. He was tired. He was so tired. And worried. He shut the door to his room. He just needed to sleep. That’s what he and Evan had agreed on. Getting some fresh air. Being apart for a night. Reset. So they’d be able to get a good night’s sleep.

Tuesday the 27th

Connor hardly remembered the rest of last night. He had on some fresh pajamas, so he must have gotten into them, but all he really remembered was tired, tired, tired. and then his head hitting the pillow. He groaned. Yesterday had been a crapshoot. He didn’t know what to think. He didn’t want to think. He wanted to roll over and get into a new position and sleep some more, like he’d already done however many other times this morning.

A wave of desperation came over him, this horrible feeling of wanting to cry but somehow not quite having the energy. It was a sensation he got more often than he’d like to admit, this feeling between tension and letting go, the desire to burst into tears, without the drive. He knew that meditating in bed on your back was probably frowned upon, because you’d just fall asleep, but this morning, it was going to have to do. Connor set his timer and let the thoughts swirl, trying somewhat futilely to let them go with ease. It felt more like playing whack a mole, trying to bat them down.

He was scared. Evan was scared. Evan was a bad partner because he was scared. Things were bad because he actually hated Connor. Oh, there was the thought that was waiting to come out. Evan did all of these things as cruel tricks to hurt Connor. That’s what it all was. A deliberate attempt to ruin Connor’s life. He knew it wasn’t true, but those were the thoughts that came and kept coming: if Evan hadn’t wanted to hurt him, he wouldn’t have done all the things he did. If he hadn’t deliberately wanted to make him feel bad, to send him into his own suicidal spirals, then he wouldn’t be wishy washy, and he wouldn’t be hurtful.

And then there were the thoughts that came after a good night’s sleep. The ones where he could think with a clearer mind, but that only enabled him to see more of the issues with how Evan treated him. This was how it had always been in their relationship—fight, make up, go to bed, wake up, remember all the damn things that had somehow been left unsaid, or not gotten brought up, or that he had let slide because he was trying to give Evan the benefit of the doubt when he really didn’t deserve it. This morning it was “you’re a person, too.” And “I don’t want to do that to either of us again.” And other stupid things like that. Making it as though somehow he and Evan had suffered the same, from the relationship, from the breakup, from the fighting yesterday, from the human condition. And on and on and on. It was exhausting to think about the ways that Evan tried to minimize what Connor was going through by looping everyone into it. Evan had done the wrong thing, so why, when he was talking about being imperfect, was it suddenly also a time to point out Connor’s imperfections? And why, when Connor was the one getting so upset, was there a question of Evan not wanting to go through that again? He wouldn’t have to go through it if he didn’t act like a shithead!

The five minute timer beeped. Connor didn’t want to open his eyes. He figured he’d just lay a little longer, give the distress a chance to settle, maybe help himself calm down, maybe even find a way to not keep thinking these thoughts over the course of the day, some kind of way to stop them from ruining whatever good times it might be possible to have with Evan despite yesterday’s argument. This was the horrible part of all this. That no matter what happened in their relationship, there would always be a souring experience and an inability to come back from it, and then that stage of the relationship would end, and they’d loop back around in a handful of years, apparently, and see what had changed. And apparently, whatever had changed wouldn’t be much.

“Well, that’s exactly what it’s about.” Connor heard a hushed voice in the hallway, somewhere between his and Zoe’s rooms. “And that’s why I need your help.”

He shot up in bed. Evan. That was Evan’s voice, and Evan was here, so he couldn’t fucking have a minute of peace, apparently, and he’d just have to pull his tarot later, because nobody would let him have a good night’s sleep.

When he opened the door, Zoe and Evan were fucking standing there, and as soon as they saw him, they looked totally incriminated. What the fuck.

“I was just getting mad at him.” Zoe was trying to hide something. She definitely didn’t look mad.

Connor didn’t know what to make of it, looking between the two of them over and over again, dumbfounded. What could she be helping Evan with—

“Because I brought these and wanted to like, put them in something as a surprise, but then she was mad because I upset you, and I don’t know if your mom keeps the vases in the same place she used to but it still feels a little weird to be rifling through your cabinets at eleven in the morning without any direction—”

“It’s eleven?” Evan was holding a cute little bouquet, kind of lopsided, with little sprouts of this and that, like he’d hand picked them from somewhere. The orchard, maybe.

“Yeah. Did you sleep well?” He sounded so tender and Connor wanted to be more appreciative, but he was a little too tired for how confusing everything was right now. He took the flowers when Evan held them out to him, and he knew it was an extra peace offering, and that he took them probably too quickly. He turned around and let his eyes pass over his room for a few moments before finding what he needed, and dropped them into a cup of water that had been sitting on his bedside table for a few days. Unceremonious. Not grateful enough. So tired.

And when he turned back into the hallway, for a second, it felt like everyone was just looking at each other, kind of confused and uncertain. If he fucked up saying thank you, he was probably going to fuck up the whole day. 

He pulled Evan into a hug, making too much eye contact with his sister and trying not to think about the fact that she was watching. 

“Thank you. I didn’t sleep super well. Sorry if I kept you.”

Connor felt his stomach churn oddly. He couldn’t tell if he was being too clipped. He didn’t know if he wanted to think about it. He didn’t know Evan was going to be here when he woke up. Everything was too confusing.

“Do you want to go back to bed? I can go home—”

“Why don’t you just come in and we’ll hang out?”

The stares went around their little circle again, Evan looking to see if Zoe was looking, Zoe looking and pretending she wasn’t. Connor looking from Evan to Zoe. Had they really been talking about the flowers, or something else? He took hold of Evan’s hand and pulled him inside his room, nodding and smiling a little to his sister as he closed the door.

Evan looked from the door to Connor’s face. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah. Are you gonna tell me why you were talking to Zoe?”

“She was mad—”

“I feel like there’s something else—”

“I mean—”

“And if you don’t tell me, you know I’m probably just going to get more and more suspicious and then I’m going to think you’re trying to cheat on me even though we’re not together or something—”

“It’s for a surprise! There! That’s all you can know.”

“The kind of surprise where it turns out you’re fucking her in the morning and me in the afternoon?” The surprise was a gift—hadn’t Evan told him that at some point? So what he was saying was only a joke, but he knew how stupidly scared he sounded.

“No.”

“Good.” Connor leaned down to kiss Evan and pulled him over to the bed, laying down and lifting the covers as Evan crawled in after him.

“Uh—”

“I feel so fucking stressed, and confused, and tired.” And here came the tears that he had thought weren’t going to ever arrive earlier this morning. He felt Evan’s arms wrap around him from behind, and they were so strong and sturdy around him, and he thought maybe he felt safer. He was already fading fast. “I feel like I just feel worse after I wake up. I think about all the things you did to make me mad and all the things I didn’t get to explain that I wanted to, or that I should have, and I’m tired of going around and around with you and I’m tired of you not loving me enough or very much and I’m tired of being so confused and…” His voice was getting softer, lighter, less fight in it as Evan just kissed his upper back. Quiet, soft pressure, pulling him closer to his chest. “I don’t want to fight and I don’t want to be scared.” Connor yawned. “I just want to go back to a time when we were both okay, and nice to each other, because we wanted to be and we loved to be and not because we had to be. Like, those flowers—”

“I wanted to do that. And I want to make things good with you. I love you.”

Connor groaned a little bit, unwilling to let it go completely. Was this really how the conversation had to end with Evan? He was going to have an excuse for everything and force Connor to just shut up and get over it? “I love you too.” Connor was going to fall asleep. He knew he was. He couldn’t fall asleep like this. He fidgeted with his hands in front of him. He had to say something. About what he’d been thinking about this morning. Or, honestly, he’d settle for just anything coherent, something that made a half-decent point about how Evan shouldn't be allowed to just end the conversation with I love you.

He could feel Evan smile against his back. “Do you want to get off your chest whatever it is you need to say?”

Connor’s head was swimming, and he wasn’t sure if the thoughts that were going to come out would make any sense as he mumbled his way through. “It’s just annoying when I’m mad at you and you turn it back on me. And you make me responsible or force me to share the burden for things that you did yourself.” Connor took a slow breath. “And you’re mean to me. And the first time you dated me you didn’t even want people to know we were dating. And now you might feel that way again. Which really hurts.”

“I have—”

“Anxiety.” That perked Connor up a bit. “You can’t blame everything on that. And, also, I can’t believe you’re arguing back at me right now after you just told me to get it off my chest.” Both of them were quiet for a moment, breathing in sync, Evan’s chest soft against his back. Connor let his breaths slow again, head relaxing back to the pillow. “Sometimes I used to think you didn’t claim me just because you didn’t want to be too closely associated with me. The freak.”

Evan sucked in a breath behind him, and he couldn’t tell if the other boy was being genuine or just a little dramatic. 

“And looking back it’s like, what did you think your mom thought we were doing? Or your roommates? And when we talked about moving in together?” Connor closed his eyes, completely exhausted. “So many people we were clearly lying to, they’d practically be fucking winking at me like we were in on a joke every time you left the room.”

Evan squeezed him tighter against him, not painfully, but enough to notice. Enough to be a little uncomfortable. “Connor, I mean, you wouldn’t say you loved me.”

He felt his eyes snap open again, just as he’d been about to lull off to sleep. He rolled around in Evan’s arms to look him in the eye and push against his chest. “Are you gonna turn that back on me, too? Really? Because that whole thing was your problem. You wouldn’t say it, and you were weird about hearing it, and you didn’t want it. I waited so long, so many months, and I never said anything because you said it would make you uncomfortable to say it too soon.”

Evan was quiet, his whole demeanor shifting, surprise and confusion flashing over his features before he looked down, not meeting Connor’s eyes. “What do you mean you waited?”

“I mean I was dying to say it. And don’t you think it’s a little fucked up that when I broke down and said I couldn’t handle fucking someone who didn’t love me, that’s when you fucking told me—”

“Okay, who’s turning it back on who? Connor. We wouldn’t have done anything if you hadn’t wanted to—”

“It was complicated! And I figured you know enough about fucking anxiety to know it would be complicated, you goddamn asshole!”

Someone passed in front of Connor’s doorway, scuffling a little, casting a shadow across the floor there. If it was Zoe, she was doing a terrible job of spying. It was almost like she wanted them to know she was there. Connor sighed. Evan sighed. They were looking at each other again, Evan tired, Connor annoyed but losing his fight. He could see the sleep coming to Evan’s eyes.

“I bet this is really making you want to live, isn’t it?”

“Actually, it is.” Evan laughed a little mirthlessly. “Jesus, it is. I want to have it out with you. God, I want to just get it all out in the open so we know where we stand. And then— to make things right.”

“Give it a rest, Evan. I’ve heard it already. Is this all you’re gonna say to me for the rest of your life?”

“I’m serious.” Evan took his hand in one swift motion under the covers. “And as angry as you are at me, you seem serious about it, too.”

“Shut up, Evan. I’m serious about that.”

“Okay. I get it. I’ll let you keep thinking it over.” Connor didn’t drop Evan’s hand. “Do you still want to sleep, or rest?” 

Connor’s heavy-lidded eyes said it all. When he rolled over and pulled Evan’s arms back around him, all he could manage was a mumbled, “Yes.” And then he was asleep.

+

Connor woke up still in Evan’s arms and somehow less alone than he’d felt when he’d knocked out. Evan was trying his best. He was doing his damnedest. He was holding him. He was trying to treat him how he wanted to be treated. He was willing to hear him out. In the list of positive changes, Connor thought that was the one that stuck out to him, that he could just actually speak his mind and not have to hold back. Maybe he was harsh and mean and Evan had heard it all before and he was tired of rehashing it, but Connor was obsessive. Connor would always think of more to cover, more to be angry about, more to fill his heart with pain, pain, pain. He thought that maybe being able to say whatever he wanted was helping to ease the flow a little bit. Just letting him get it all out so that he could take a breather.

That’s what it felt like when he stretched out like a cat, limbs crackling and popping, Evan stirring behind him as he turned around.

“Did I wake you up?”

“Yeah, I think I fell asleep a little bit.”

Connor smiled softly. “Can I kiss you?”

“Yeah, sure—”

He cut Evan off as their lips connected. Quiet, tired, soft. “I’m sorry if I made you upset.”

“If?” Evan laughed, and, despite his best interest, Connor actually found himself laughing a little, too.

“What I said was all true. All the thoughts swirling around in my head.” He kissed Evan again, smiling a little. “I won't lie, I like getting them out with you. I like just saying them. Not hiding.” Connor touched the other boy’s arm, thumbing over his bicep, feeling suddenly so available and open to touch. “I feel like we used to hide. Or, I did. And you did too, I guess. Maybe just In different ways." Connor breathed in slowly. “I guess it might not feel the best for you. Maybe I could do it better. But in general, I like being able to be open, in some way.”

Evan smiled a little. “Yeah. Oddly, I think I get it.” He hesitated for a moment, seemingly unsure if he should say what he was thinking or not. “I wonder if it helps, in some way, to be able to just get it out. Like maybe you won’t feel so pent up. Even though it sucks to be on the receiving end.”

“Yeah. I mean, I care about you, but I gotta say, it is nice to not worry about just. Saying it.” Connor was smiling a little too hard, in a way that didn’t feel like it made sense. He’d been so annoyed yesterday, he’d been so stressed this morning. But now he was… calm? Happy? Crazy?

It was infectious. Evan was smiling, laughing a little. “You feel better?” It wasn’t mocking, or confused, just happy, just encouraging, like he was thankful for whatever was making Connor so happy. 

“In a weird way, I do.” They were touching each other’s faces, thumbs rubbing across cheekbones, looking into each other’s eyes, aglow with love. “I mean, I’m sure I could say it in a less offensive way—” 

Evan laughed. “Yeah.”

“And I think I could try to, like, study and learn what I need to do to make it better, make myself better at talking about it. But in general, I feel a lot better.”

“You just need someone to rant to?”

“Sometimes.” Connor smiled, shrugging a little. “When you piss me off.”

Evan shrugged a little offhandedly. “Maybe Zoe could be that person?” 

Zoe. His sister. Maybe. “Yeah. Maybe.”

“Just an idea.”

“Yeah. Although I’m not saying you’re off the hook for everything. Like, I don’t think that just talking about it will make it better, or just ranting to her about it will either. It takes two of us, both you and me, to make it better.” He was still smiling like a maniac, just happy to be around Evan somehow. “I just feel more optimistic about the whole thing. Like, I love you.” He watched Evan’s eyes soften, magic. “I want to enjoy you.”

“Oh, really?” Evan surged forward and kissed him, and he kissed back, in love, in love, so in love.

The fish in the cup. 

+

Dinner felt embarrassing. He was holding Evan’s hand under the table, fielding all the unhinged, confused looks, just like every other time, it seemed like. 

Everyone but his dad, who seemed to have gotten over the interest and shock and returned to normal. He’d known about Evan the first time. So had everyone else, except maybe Connor’s grandparents. And Connor was sure that everyone knew how it had eaten him alive. He guessed that was why everyone was extra interested. His father, on the other hand, probably felt that he’d seen it all before and this was just the same cycle as usual. Nothing much to see. 

For his own part, Connor couldn’t tell whether this was largely something new or something old, whether he was going to fight with Evan again tonight or fall for him harder. Probably the second. Being able to kiss him in bed all day definitely helped with that. They were probably making things awkward for everybody else, he knew. But they had always been this way, hadn’t they? In their own little world, oblivious or uncaring about anything but their own love, their own problems, their own struggles, and annoyances, and how to fix those things, or help each other fix them. They were alone together, mirrors of each other, always just reflecting things back, caring, helping, hating. Maybe in equal measure, but sometimes not. 

To everyone else, this was probably so intense, and frightening. Everyone probably wanted them to stop being the way they were being, however they could, as fast as they could. But they were acting like the same teenagers they’d always been, who thought they knew better than everyone, that they were going to figure this out and be together forever. 

Connor found it all a little difficult to parse. Was he going to be with Evan forever? Did it matter? Did he need to think harder about how he was going about this? Always. 

Evan squeezed his hand under the table. 

“Hmm?”

“I said, would you like to have Evan come to the show with us tomorrow?” His father was staring at him like he had three heads. Trying to be a good dad and being epically rejected, as usual, he was probably thinking. 

“Uh—”

“We’re going to see the Nutcracker,” his mother prompted. 

“Again.”

“Thank you, Zoe.” They both had these sour smirks on their faces, like maybe there’d been some kind of argument he hadn’t heard about today, or sometime before, about going to see the show, or the contents of it, or something.

Connor looked to Evan, who was mirroring his own skeptical expression back to him. Good that they were both on the same page. He didn’t want to bring him along for family fun at this point. Better to keep their time together to themselves for now, and it seemed like they were probably on the same page about that. “I think I’m good. Evan’s definitely seen it before, maybe even with us.”

“Yeah.” Evan laughed a little, but then covered his mouth with his hand, like he didn't want to offend the parents. “I think I actually did see it with you all. Like, what, maybe freshman year of college?”

“Now, did you all go to the same school? Is that how you met?” This comment from his grandmother, a significant wild card for this conversation, who was apparently just trying to understand exactly what was going on. Hell, Connor thought everyone already knew.

“No, we met in high school.”

“And you’ve been apart for how long?” His grandfather. With a tone that conveyed that he was apparently more interested in interrogating them for their decisions than getting the facts of the story straight. At least his family had largely come around to the fact that he was in fact gay, and that it would help his mental health significantly if they’d be supportive. Zoe had been a huge help in that arena, too. But it didn’t change the fact that there was apparently some issue with how he was behaving, or how he had behaved or handled the relationship, because of course there was—he was Connor, after all, so there always had to be something wrong with him, right?

“Uh, well, we were out of touch for…” Connor looked at Evan. Was out of touch soft enough wording? Or was it just a horribly euphemized way of saying they’d broken up? Did everyone know why they’d been out of touch? Did people think the breakup was amicable in any way, shape, or form? Connor tried in vain to search for any memory he had of anything he’d ever told his grandparents about Evan. He thought for sure his mom would have just told everyone everything immediately, figured privacy was never a given with her, but apparently he’d misjudged the entire thing. Evan wasn’t giving any indication that anything he was saying was wrong, so he figured he’d just power through. “I think, about six years, or so.”

“And you got back in touch, how—?”

“Uh, we ran into each other, actually!” Connor tried to hide his absolute surprise at Evan’s interjection, tried not to whip his head in Evan’s direction, eyes bulging. When he finally looked, Evan was smiling so easily. Had he been perfecting some lie? Because he didn’t want to tell people that he had reached out in dire straits? Understandable enough, but now Connor was having to look around the table and mentally take stock of who he thought was buying this versus who was getting skeptical. “Turns out, we actually moved to the same area after college—” Evan sounded significantly more nervous now that he was elaborating, talking faster and faster so that his words strung together as Connor lost himself in thought. Connor's mom was surprised. Everyone else looked confused. Zoe had an almost annoyed look glazing across her face the longer he went on. “—so after all that time,  I guess we still share similar interests, and have the same taste in things!” That last part had Zoe quirking an eyebrow. Same taste in things. Because, in Evan's over-the-top story, they’d moved to the same place? Surely Evan had to know that same taste in things sounded a lot like same taste in people, which, thinking back to their Timothée Chalamet discussion, they apparently did also have. Same taste in men. Everyone at the table was probably thinking that. Dear god.

Despite her initial moment of shock, his mother seemed to be the only one following along enough to say anything. “Well, Evan, I didn’t know you had moved to Colorado.”

Evan choked a little on his water and tried awkwardly to laugh it off. “Yeah. Yep. Uh…”

Time to say something. Anything, before Evan was forced to start making up lies that were way too far beyond what he could reasonably substantiate. Connor had to come to the rescue. “Wait, I’m sorry to totally derail this conversation, but I just realized I was not paying attention at all earlier. So, when are we seeing the Nutcracker again? Like, what time? I’m sorry I totally spaced out.” 

Evan squeezed his hand under the table as his mother rattled off some time that, if he was completely honest, he still wasn’t hearing. It was his turn to run his thumb over the back of Evan’s knuckles, to comfort him, to care for him, to keep him safe. And that felt important. That felt… powerful.

+

Evan was going to sleep over tonight. Connor felt like a borderline. He was giddy waiting for Evan to come back from the shower, wearing his shirt, looking so cute, so perfect. Deep breath. Deep breath. He couldn’t just decide to start being obsessed with Evan again after having this huge fight yesterday, could he? He loved the feeling of making up. It was too powerful, too overwhelming. He wasn’t really deciding, anyway. It was just happening. It was happening really fast.

Connor wiggled under the covers, waiting, excited, heart beating, blood rushing to… his head. Definitely his head. And he waited, and he waited, and then Evan poked his head in, and Connor’s chest melted into a puddle at the sight of the other boy’s curly hair, damp from the shower, so beautiful with Evan’s soft features, those blue eyes, his absolutely kissable lips.

“Can I hang out with Zoe for a little bit?”

And then things were back to normal. Or, maybe what normal should be, where Evan was just some guy, just his friend first, just asking him something oddly friendly about his sister, which Connor was possibly slightly glad for, because it made him just him. It was also a weird request, so it made him nervous at the same time. 

“It’s for the surprise.”

And at that, Connor smiled again. “What are you doing with her?”

“Well, I just need her help with something.”

“Are you making something?”

“Uh,” Evan hung onto the door and swung it back and forth on its hinges, a little sheepish. “Not exactly. I promise it won’t take long. Just—”

“Go on, go on.” Connor waved him on with a smile. “I’ll be here waiting.”

Did that sound weird, or creepy, or sweet? Hopefully sweet. Connor snuggled back under the warm covers as Evan shut the door behind him. Love, love, love. Things were quiet. He thought he might fall asleep waiting for Evan to return.

+

He did fall asleep. And when he woke up, he was enveloped again in Evan’s strong arms, warm. Sleepy.

Connor turned around and kissed Evan, and he kissed back. Warm, wet. God, Connor had missed this. The soft feeling of Evan’s tongue on his, running along the edges, the tip. Sleepy. The best kind of kissing, to him. Sleepy and sloppy and un-self-important. Because both of them could be self-important quite often. So much of Evan’s outside life was defined by his pretending like he had it all together. It was practically a full time job. For his part, Connor spent so much time thinking about how he’d been wronged, and how much he was always in the right. Which, in fairness, was often a narrative centered on Evan and his issues. 

But alone, biting each other’s lips, licking into mouths, wrapping their arms and legs around each other and not letting go, just rolling. Here, there was something special. Evan held onto Connor’s lip, sucking a little, while Connor scrambled on top of him, humming. 

He couldn’t help the way his hands raced up Evan’s shirt, along his abs, up over his arm muscles. Back down to brush over Evan’s nipple, which made him whine just a little. 

“Connor, we should be quiet—“

He cut Evan off with another kiss. Maybe he hummed. He was probably being way too loud. He knew that. He kept humming and whining and panting and kissing and licking and sucking and something about it felt good like it hadn’t for him in so many years. It felt somehow like something safe. Something away from the world. Just their own. Like coming home. 

Connor took Evan’s head in his hands and pulled him in again by the hair that grazed over his neck, eliciting another squeak. Connor didn’t know if he’d ever stop kissing Evan like this. He wasn’t sure he could stop it if he tried. 

God, they were so hard against each other, just boxers, wet and messy. Evan rolled them so that he was on top of Connor, licking at his neck. Everything felt so good. Every fiber of his being strung like a wire, ready to be played by Evan in the best way possible. He felt as if he were out of his body, allowed for a few moments just to be himself and no one else, with no performance, no thought whatsoever. Maybe that was ugly of him, to want to be able to just let go when so much was going on around him. Maybe it was selfish. He couldn’t bring himself to worry about it. He just relished in it, letting everything float away until there was nothing but Evan’s mouth. Evan’s mouth and his skin until he was pure sensation. This was mindfulness. This was beauty. This was love. And he fell asleep that way, his hand in Evan’s hair as kisses got softer, lighter, fewer and farther between down his body. Peace, peace, peace.