[He glances over the thumbnail although he will ultimately agree to whatever Oliver chooses.]
A foreign film - how cultured of you.
[He starts up the movie, and it flickers to life in the space above them, angled so that they can view it comfortably from where they recline. Before he settles in, however, he looks to the man beside him.]
Come on. Don't you think it's cool to see how aliens see Earth?
[He rubs at his shoulder convincingly, reluctantly pulling away at Connor's offer to turn the lights off. It'll make the viewing experience far better if they can see it properly.]
[He turns off the lamps that light the small space before quickly returning to Oliver.]
I just want to see what parts they get hilariously wrong.
[As he lies back against the pillows, he reaches for Oliver's hand in the narrow space between them and clasps it tight. By now the opening credits are underway, a sweeping ballroom scene stuffed with elaborate gowns and prim jollity.]
[Oliver huffs a laugh, settling against him. It's already showing signs of inaccuracies to put it lightly. Henry VIII and Elizabeth I have been announced to the ballroom as husband and wife, and no one in the history of ever has asked anyone "how doth thy do?"
Cuddling up with Connor may be the most bearable thing about this movie.]
Thou callest me knave when thou knows naught of goodly ways? Egads! Thou doth wound me.
[Is Oliver even any more talented at old English than the actors on screen? Probably not, but he's clearly finding enjoyment at making fun anyway. He rolls on his side, and closer still to Connor, bringing their faces close.]
[Oliver laughs lightly, resting their heads together. He has no idea what's going on in the movie now, nor does he care much. They can always pick it up later if they want. All he really wanted was to lie here with Connor anyway.]
[Even after everything they've been through, if Oliver's upset he's always been able to turn to Connor. It doesn't matter how bad things have been between. But now... things have been good. Not perfect, but they're improving.
He sighs, knowing his departing friend had been right when he said they needed to work things out, whatever the outcome. Their current arrangement just isn't sustainable.]
Mettaton thinks we should talk about what's going on with us.
[He would say that it is Oliver who gives more than any reasonable man should, and receives too little in return. He has given him a bastion in which to hide himself away: arms in which to fold himself and ears in which to pour himself, and Connor can only attempt to provide the same support. Oliver has bared to him the fullest measure of honesty, and Connor can only reveal some pieces while hiding others.
His soft grin fades for what Oliver says. His hand, which had begun caressing the other man's side, falls pensively still. His eyes flicker and his answer hovers reluctantly in his mouth.]
I guess we can't put it off forever.
[The dialogue of the movie buzzes overhead in an indistinct haze, providing cover. Silence would be unbearable in this moment.]
[The discussion somehow feels more ominous without Connor's hand stroking his side. He wants it to get well, but if they fall out now, that's it. Things have improved between them, but they're still uncertain enough he's not sure they'll get through this without disagreements.]
[He chooses his words carefully and gathers them slowly, knowing that the wrong one could be the spark that incinerates all they have managed to restore.]
You only wanted to wait until something had changed. You wanted to figure yourself out.
[His eyes, which had fallen to the narrow crevasse between their bodies now rise to meet Oliver's.]
Has that happened? Has it changed? We're not the same people we were before.
[But that wasn't their only issue, was it? It isn't Connor's fault Oliver cheated him out of his Stanford place, and he doesn't want to believe he's that person anymore, but he can't help but worry about the factors that led to that.
He worries his lip, hesitating before he meets the other man's eyes.]
You're still hiding things from me. Right? That hasn't changed.
[His gut pulls into a knot. That doesn't matter anymore, he wants to say, Oliver's question the trigger and this answer the bullet. But if it didn't matter anymore, then why keep secrets?
Connor shuts off the movie and the ostentatiously trimmed actors and the intricate sets they occupy dissipate into darkness, the unfamiliar words into silence. He rolls onto his back, staring up into the nothingness.]
If it were up to me, I wouldn't have anything to hide from you.
[But he cannot undo what has happened, cannot extricate himself from his actions.]
I keep thinking about what you said to me, that I don't have to let Annalise control my life anymore. And I keep thinking about how before it was because I wanted to protect you that I didn't tell you anything - because I didn't want you to become involved the way I was. But now, out here...maybe it's really just because I don't want you to hate me.
[The darkness may mask his expression, but it does nothing to cloak the way his voice splinters against the end of his sentence.]
[The ominous feeling only grows when Connor turns off the movie, leaving them lying in a tense silence. He touches Connor's arm carefully, as though to reassure him, but the reality is that he's scared too.
Whatever Connor did, he knows it's bad. Imagining what it could be is hard, maybe worse than the reality, but once he does know there's no changing that.]
I won't hate you. Whatever it is... just tell me. We can work through it together.
[It is what he had pleaded for, that what problems they have they work through together rather than each carrying his burden alone. But the secrets he has lugged behind him for the past year, weighing him down like a ball and chain, seem like too great a burden to thrust on Oliver.
Connor is silent for a long moment, so long that the quiet and darkness itself seem to manifest as a weight that presses down on him and makes it difficult to breathe. Then finally, he manages to press the words out. They are quiet and desolate, but in his own ears they are an explosion.]
[At first his brows crease in confusion. The entirety of Philadelphia knows what happened to Sam Keating. The murder had been big news. Even people who didn't know anyone involved could probably tell you something about the discovery of his remains and the trials that had followed.
Except no one ever really established what happened to Sam Keating. He freezes, blood suddenly running cold. There's a crack in his voice when he breaks the silence, dreading what he might be about to find out.]
[That night rises from his memories into the present, a drip at first, then a trickle, a stream, a torrent engulfing him in the darkness. The stampede of their feet down the stairs, the terrible crack of Sam's body striking the floor below. The worse crack of the trophy against his skull, the bloody crater left behind. The weight of him rolled up in the rug, tossed onto their amateur pyre, divided into trash bags.
Connor doesn't know where his thoughts stop and his words begin: all of it bleeds together, twisting out of his control. He thinks he might throw up, but what comes out of his mouth instead is an answer.]
It all happened so fast-- He fell over the banister, and we thought that killed him, but then he grabbed Rebecca so Wes--
[He chokes on the words but in the darkness makes a gesture in imitation of striking with an object.]
I didn't even see it happen, I just saw his head...it looked like all this smashed, rotten fruit or meat or something.
[He sits up suddenly, drawing himself into a knot with his head between his knees and his arms folded over his head. His breath falls roughly as if telling all of this exerts him. But whereas before he was afraid to talk, now he is afraid to stop, because doing so would open him to Oliver's judgment.]
I didn't even want to be there-- You've got to believe me. It was all part of Wes's stupid crusade to prove Rebecca innocent - to prove that it was Sam who killed Lila. I didn't want to do any of it--
[But he had. It was he who helped roll the body up in the rug, and he who delivered it to the woods, and he who hacked Sam Keating to pieces.]
[He stares in horror, expression masked by the darkness, but the way he flinches when Connor mimes striking someone he flinches back. He can't help it.]
So why did you?
[His mind's abuzz, overloaded with the information Connor's giving him. He'd begged for this at times, but now he's hearing it he doesn't want to. Half of it he's already blocking out, unable to believe that Connor could really be involved with this.
Not even just Connor... Connor's friends. His friends. People he's laughed with. Shared drinks with. Even welcomed into his home.
He knows none of them are angels. He's broken the law for them numerous times. He's tried to prove to them he's just as capable of being involved in the same situations they are. But this? This is way beyond anything he'd considered a serious possibility.]
[He does not lift his head, and the shadows obscure all, but even so he imagines the revulsion that must be contorting Oliver's expression. He hears the disbelief quaking in his voice and waits for that disbelief to either soften into consolation or harden into censure. The long moment of waiting for Oliver's feelings to pull toward one side or the other is like the long moment in which one teeters on a precipice and knows that he will either hold his balance or topple.]
I told you, everything happened so fast-- I was scared. We were all terrified. And once we started trying to cover up-- what happened...we couldn't stop.
[As all the fear he had kept locked up inside of him for so long flies free, his voice trembles from the force of it, and his words pitch forward trying to keep up with his racing mind.]
I wanted to go to the police. Afterward, both Michaela and I tried to tell the police. But she-- but Annalise stopped us. I tried to do the right thing, I did.
[Ultimately, Connor's chosen to conceal this for the entire time. This isn't a small thing. This isn't even like any of the other crimes the two of them have committed, either separately or together.
This isn't something Oliver had ever seriously considered Connor capable of. It had crossed his mind, but not as a real possibility. Now that he knows what happened, he doesn't know what to think.]
[Oliver's cool words penetrate him like ice does the cracks and crevices of rock, and as if by the forces of erosion something inside of him crumbles. His tears are hot and sudden on his cheeks; they dampen his voice. His fingers dig into his legs as he tries to hold himself together.]
I couldn't. My car - we used it to...to transport Sam. His DNA is all over the inside of it. And only Annalise knows where it is - or Frank, I don't know which. But don't you get it?
[Sam had been only the beginning. He had had to break more laws and tell more lies; he was no murderer, but blood stained his hands nonetheless.]
She owns me. And she could have ruined me, worse than she already did. Now do you get why I hate her so much?
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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A foreign film - how cultured of you.
[He starts up the movie, and it flickers to life in the space above them, angled so that they can view it comfortably from where they recline. Before he settles in, however, he looks to the man beside him.]
Want me to get the lights?
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[He rubs at his shoulder convincingly, reluctantly pulling away at Connor's offer to turn the lights off. It'll make the viewing experience far better if they can see it properly.]
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I just want to see what parts they get hilariously wrong.
[As he lies back against the pillows, he reaches for Oliver's hand in the narrow space between them and clasps it tight. By now the opening credits are underway, a sweeping ballroom scene stuffed with elaborate gowns and prim jollity.]
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Cuddling up with Connor may be the most bearable thing about this movie.]
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Howest dost thou doest, Sirest Oliverest?
[The seductive arch of his eyebrow, which he affects for the sake of the joke, gives way then as he cracks a dry laugh.]
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Ist thou making funneth of our goodeth lady queeneth?
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Nay, thou sauciest of knaves. I do not make fun of her majesty, I merely make fun.
[A bastardized Romeo and Juliet reference, thank you very much. While they mock, they are likely missing some very nuanced plot points.]
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[Is Oliver even any more talented at old English than the actors on screen? Probably not, but he's clearly finding enjoyment at making fun anyway. He rolls on his side, and closer still to Connor, bringing their faces close.]
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Okay, we seriously need to stop before I go and shuffle off my mortal coil.
[And now more so than the movie he watches the other man's eyes.]
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[Oliver laughs lightly, resting their heads together. He has no idea what's going on in the movie now, nor does he care much. They can always pick it up later if they want. All he really wanted was to lie here with Connor anyway.]
Thank you. For coming over here. I needed this.
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[He then rolls onto his side toward Oliver, draping his arm over his waist in the sort of support that comes most naturally to him.]
Anything that will cheer you up, I'm here for it.
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[Even after everything they've been through, if Oliver's upset he's always been able to turn to Connor. It doesn't matter how bad things have been between. But now... things have been good. Not perfect, but they're improving.
He sighs, knowing his departing friend had been right when he said they needed to work things out, whatever the outcome. Their current arrangement just isn't sustainable.]
Mettaton thinks we should talk about what's going on with us.
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His soft grin fades for what Oliver says. His hand, which had begun caressing the other man's side, falls pensively still. His eyes flicker and his answer hovers reluctantly in his mouth.]
I guess we can't put it off forever.
[The dialogue of the movie buzzes overhead in an indistinct haze, providing cover. Silence would be unbearable in this moment.]
So...what is going on between us?
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I never wanted our break up to be forever.
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You only wanted to wait until something had changed. You wanted to figure yourself out.
[His eyes, which had fallen to the narrow crevasse between their bodies now rise to meet Oliver's.]
Has that happened? Has it changed? We're not the same people we were before.
[They couldn't be.]
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[But that wasn't their only issue, was it? It isn't Connor's fault Oliver cheated him out of his Stanford place, and he doesn't want to believe he's that person anymore, but he can't help but worry about the factors that led to that.
He worries his lip, hesitating before he meets the other man's eyes.]
You're still hiding things from me. Right? That hasn't changed.
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Connor shuts off the movie and the ostentatiously trimmed actors and the intricate sets they occupy dissipate into darkness, the unfamiliar words into silence. He rolls onto his back, staring up into the nothingness.]
If it were up to me, I wouldn't have anything to hide from you.
[But he cannot undo what has happened, cannot extricate himself from his actions.]
I keep thinking about what you said to me, that I don't have to let Annalise control my life anymore. And I keep thinking about how before it was because I wanted to protect you that I didn't tell you anything - because I didn't want you to become involved the way I was. But now, out here...maybe it's really just because I don't want you to hate me.
[The darkness may mask his expression, but it does nothing to cloak the way his voice splinters against the end of his sentence.]
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Whatever Connor did, he knows it's bad. Imagining what it could be is hard, maybe worse than the reality, but once he does know there's no changing that.]
I won't hate you. Whatever it is... just tell me. We can work through it together.
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Connor is silent for a long moment, so long that the quiet and darkness itself seem to manifest as a weight that presses down on him and makes it difficult to breathe. Then finally, he manages to press the words out. They are quiet and desolate, but in his own ears they are an explosion.]
I know what happened to Sam Keating.
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Except no one ever really established what happened to Sam Keating. He freezes, blood suddenly running cold. There's a crack in his voice when he breaks the silence, dreading what he might be about to find out.]
What happened to Sam Keating?
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Connor doesn't know where his thoughts stop and his words begin: all of it bleeds together, twisting out of his control. He thinks he might throw up, but what comes out of his mouth instead is an answer.]
It all happened so fast-- He fell over the banister, and we thought that killed him, but then he grabbed Rebecca so Wes--
[He chokes on the words but in the darkness makes a gesture in imitation of striking with an object.]
I didn't even see it happen, I just saw his head...it looked like all this smashed, rotten fruit or meat or something.
[He sits up suddenly, drawing himself into a knot with his head between his knees and his arms folded over his head. His breath falls roughly as if telling all of this exerts him. But whereas before he was afraid to talk, now he is afraid to stop, because doing so would open him to Oliver's judgment.]
I didn't even want to be there-- You've got to believe me. It was all part of Wes's stupid crusade to prove Rebecca innocent - to prove that it was Sam who killed Lila. I didn't want to do any of it--
[But he had. It was he who helped roll the body up in the rug, and he who delivered it to the woods, and he who hacked Sam Keating to pieces.]
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So why did you?
[His mind's abuzz, overloaded with the information Connor's giving him. He'd begged for this at times, but now he's hearing it he doesn't want to. Half of it he's already blocking out, unable to believe that Connor could really be involved with this.
Not even just Connor... Connor's friends. His friends. People he's laughed with. Shared drinks with. Even welcomed into his home.
He knows none of them are angels. He's broken the law for them numerous times. He's tried to prove to them he's just as capable of being involved in the same situations they are. But this? This is way beyond anything he'd considered a serious possibility.]
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I told you, everything happened so fast-- I was scared. We were all terrified. And once we started trying to cover up-- what happened...we couldn't stop.
[As all the fear he had kept locked up inside of him for so long flies free, his voice trembles from the force of it, and his words pitch forward trying to keep up with his racing mind.]
I wanted to go to the police. Afterward, both Michaela and I tried to tell the police. But she-- but Annalise stopped us. I tried to do the right thing, I did.
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[Ultimately, Connor's chosen to conceal this for the entire time. This isn't a small thing. This isn't even like any of the other crimes the two of them have committed, either separately or together.
This isn't something Oliver had ever seriously considered Connor capable of. It had crossed his mind, but not as a real possibility. Now that he knows what happened, he doesn't know what to think.]
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I couldn't. My car - we used it to...to transport Sam. His DNA is all over the inside of it. And only Annalise knows where it is - or Frank, I don't know which. But don't you get it?
[Sam had been only the beginning. He had had to break more laws and tell more lies; he was no murderer, but blood stained his hands nonetheless.]
She owns me. And she could have ruined me, worse than she already did. Now do you get why I hate her so much?
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