Primeval fic: True Love (from the other side)
Title: True Love (from the other side)
Author: SCWLC
Disclaimer: I own nothing that anyone recognises.
Summary: Stephen just needs someone to talk to, Connor's more than perfect for the job.
Pairing: Stephen/Connor
Rating: NC-17
Series: Two. Kinda has to be, all things considered.
A/N: So, I do this sometimes. I've said it before, I'm very derivative of myself, and I like PoV work. So sometimes I just go back and rewrite my own stuff from the other perspective, just because I can. I felt like writing and couldn't really decide on anything. So, this just kind of happened. Which may be a theme some will notice in how I write. Also, I am deeply annoyed because I accidentally deleted basically the whole of the new Something Like Claudia Brown update. So annoyed with myself. Anyhow, I'm writing this on three hours of sleep after being up until four in the morning, because I'm totally insane, so . . . well . . . hopefully this is actually readable.
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Stephen wasn't entirely sure how he'd wound up dialling Connor, save that it had seemed a good idea at the time to find someone to talk to, and Nick wasn't available. Really, it would have been stupid to call Nick to bemoan the fact that Helen had seduced him. Even drunk off his arse he knew that was a bad idea. He couldn't call Abby, that would be as stupid as calling Nick, and who was left in Stephen's ever-decreasing circle of friends he wouldn't have to lie about anything to?
It had to be Connor. Sweet, innocent, naive, dependable Connor. He could trust Connor wouldn't be horrible, might be helpful and let Stephen believe he wasn't the vile execrable monster he felt he was at times. So, he called. "Connor!"
"Stephen?" came the northern accent down the line, sounding baffled. "Hi. What do you . . . why . . . what's up?"
"I was just wondering if you wanted to come over," Stephen said. Like always, once committed, he didn't back down. No matter how stupid he sounded, he'd learnt one thing over the years. Sound confident enough and people trusted you to know what you were doing, even if you were pulling things out of your arse. "I've got beer and tequila. I'm sure you can't want to spend all your time around Abby." Something told him his voice wasn't as steady as it ought to be, and that he wasn't speaking as well as he might, but he ruthlessly quashed his Oxford-educated father from his head, not needing that bloody ponce making him feel stupid and inadequate.
The voice was a little suspicious sounding as it asked, "Tequila? Stephen, are you alright?"
Something in that caution made Stephen want to just throw caution to the winds. He was tired of being cautious. Cautious lest he set Nick off, cautious lest he bother Lester, cautious lest he hurt Abby, cautious lest he set Jenny or Leek or anyone else off. Cautious about Helen coming around his flat. "Why wouldn't I be fine? Helen's yanking my chain about, left, right, up, down, and Nick hates me and Abby thinks I'm awful and you're the only person who's not horrible to me on principle."
"I'll be right there," Connor said, something in his voice soothing and urgent and it made something in Stephen relax to know that he was still worth coming to help, even if it was dependable Connor.
A knock at the door a surprisingly short time later, and he was welcoming Connor into his flat. The younger man's face was a study. Stephen found that, in his current state of being completely plastered he couldn't read that face, just knew that it wouldn't judge him and find him wanting, and he sprawled out on his couch, Connor on a chair nearby, looking relaxed, if wary, but beautifully neutral. Wonderfully like he would let Stephen speak and not foist the blame onto him. "It just happened, you know? She lied about everything and I just . . . couldn't . . ."
The bottle was still half full, round and heavy, it rolled nicely in his hands. Something to do with them when he couldn't clean a gun or sharpen a knife. It eased his native restlessness until he was able to focus again.
"At a guess, you're talking about Professor Cutter's wife," Connor said. Stephen looked at him through his lashes, truly impressed at the other's poker face. Maybe Connor was good at cards. It would be fun to play a hand or two with someone as brilliantly unreadable as all this. No, not unreadable, there was clear sympathy there, but neither condemnation nor approval. The tightness in his chest and shoulders relaxed another degree.
But the reminder of the cause of his choice to go on a bender in his own home just made the bitterness and self-hate well up again. "Yes, Helen." He looked at Connor, still expecting disgust. Nothing but open sympathy. "I thought I was in love with her. Hell, I thought she loved me but cared too much about Nick to make a clean break." The words poured out into the waiting ear, and he thought vaguely that it was unfair of him to burden poor, innocent Connor with his own problems. Connor didn't deserve to have another veil of innocence ripped from his eyes, but it felt so good to just say it. Another swallow of the tequila and he finished, "Then she's back with all the coy looks and kissing me in the university and . . ." he trailed off.
She'd teased him. Like the worst sort of cocktease, and made him think it was love. He'd spent that year of the affair practically with blue balls. Oh, there was lots of sex, but in between she'd visit him of a morning, kiss and tease and drive him to distraction, then scarper off with a giggle that it was late and there wasn't time. He was almost Pavlovian in his response to her. The tension driving him slowly mad, the release of it, with her, at her hands, binding him to her because she made sure he couldn't get it anywhere else.
Connor's voice shook him from the painful memories. "Just don't play her games, Stephen. If she left without even caring about either of you, she can't be what you thought she was." He was edging forward, and Stephen didn't quite know why, but he did know that Connor couldn't be right. He couldn't. Except that he was, but he wasn't as right as he could be, because Stephen was the one who'd been weak and pathetic and sad.
"Well, she's not, at that. But then, I'm not such a prize either, am I? Sleeping with the wife of one of the best friends I've ever had." He felt the start of the slow rotation of the room, the sense that maybe he'd had too much finally coming to him, and he turned to lay down before he lost all his dignity and started swaying and making an idiot of himself. He left the one leg on the floor, leaned back against the arm of the sofa and put the other leg up.
He blinked, and Connor was at the end of the sofa, looking earnestly at him, shadows in those normally innocent eyes. A small voice in his head wondered where those shadows were from and if he'd needed to be pissed to see them. "And you fell for her telling you that she was in love with you," Connor pointed out. "You were convinced she was something other than what she was, and it's not the same as setting out to steal Cutter's wife."
It wasn't, but for the problem that he'd known better. Knew better than to do that to Nick and to himself, and he hated the fact that part of him still wanted her in those moments she'd been all soft doe eyes and sweet words. Rather like Connor, actually, if Connor had had a cruel, manipulative bone in his body. "It takes two to tango," he said, instead of saying all this to Connor. Then he took another swallow, because the burn down his throat distracted him from how tight his throat was from suppressed, childish tears.
Connor nodded. "Yes," he said, pointedly. "It does. Helen did as much, if not more, than you did."
Was he just too drunk that he couldn't properly win this argument? But he did have a counter to that, he realised. Because it was the thing that explained it all. He wasn't vile, per se, "Cheers," he felt a mockery of a smile stretch over his lips. "So, I'm not only worthless, I'm stupid too."
The statement seemed to make Connor angry. He looked like he wanted to shake Stephen. "You were a gullible undergrad," he said sharply, so sharply Stephen winced slightly at the rebuke. "A lot of people have been there."
And Stephen wanted to know, suddenly, how Connor knew. Did he know? Did he have friends who'd been used this way? Had it happened to him? A flash in Stephen's mind of a younger Connor, undergraduate, being teased and twisted the way Stephen was and coming out of it the nervous wreck he was now. And then a flash of defensiveness. Because Connor was his. Theirs. The team's. One of them, and once Stephen claimed someone, he didn't unclaim them without a damned good reason.
But that was over in a flash, because he knew he'd made the right call in calling Connor. Because somehow, miraculously, Connor understood. He always understood. He understood Cutter when the man came raving out of the anomaly about Claudia Brown, he understood Abby when she had mad girly days that left Stephen perplexed, he understood Jenny when she tried not to shriek that she was neither action hero, nor Claudia. He always understood and was always there and reliable in a way no one else ever seemed to be. "You know why I called you, Connor?" Stephen asked. "You're just . . . nice. And honest. And I know I can trust you because you're just . . . dependable."
Connor's eyes shuttered for a moment. A flash only, but something dark passed behind them, something that woke a flash of a protective instinct in Stephen, but drunk as he was, his foggy mind couldn't focus and rolled right back to his own sad state of affairs. And now Connor was up and moving, kneeling beside him, bringing his head closer to level with Stephen's, taking the bottle away and with it Stephen's thing to fidget with. A warm hand on his shoulder brought Stephen's focus away from his hands and the inside of his head, then. "Stephen," came that warm, familiar, rough accent. "Listen. I know you're all about honesty, that's why this is hitting you so hard. Helen lied and convinced you to lie, whether by omission or out and out, she did. It's why hiding the anomalies is so tough on you, and I get it's coming to a head."
How did Connor always understand? He was barely listening to the words now, really seeing Connor for the first time. Pale skin, deep brown eyes that could waver from a warm chocolate to dark coffee with a change in mood. A mobile face that could show a hundred emotions, expressing them all in moments, a dimple on one cheek that added a layer of cuteness to Connor's normal cheer, while the jawline and persistent stubble grounded the young man, making him look his age. He said something about Stephen not drinking himself to death, but Stephen could only see those soft-looking lips and wonder if Connor was any good at kissing. "You know what I miss?" he asked.
"What?" Connor asked back.
He didn't bother to answer or explain, just wanting to see if Connor's kisses were like Connor. Simple, unaffected, warm and friendly with a dash of dashing grace and handsomeness.
They were. His teammate barely checked at the kiss, and Stephen groaned into that talented mouth, because Connor did kiss just like he was. And Stephen had to have more, sliding his tongue forward past Connor's lips, slipping his fingers into Connor's hair, and being rewarded with a moan and a tilt of the head a little like a cat being petted. That didn't even last long, though, as Connor leaned the rest of the way, his lips sliding to the corner of Stephen's mouth, down his cheek and to his neck, where small nips, licks and sucking lips felt so brilliant.
A small voice in the back of Stephen's head asked what the hell he was doing, but that was silenced as Connor let himself be pulled onto Stephen on the sofa, a perfectly hard bulge pressing into the one Stephen himself was sporting, and his world narrowed to just how good he could get both of them to feel.
But the sofa was too small, too cramped for what he was imagining, and he sat up, pulling Connor with him to his bed, the younger man just following docilely along, then falling to the bed with him, twining his limbs with Stephen's while they kissed and pressed together. This was perfect, was truly what he'd missed being with Helen. The honest affection of a partner who gave a damn about the other and the feeling that someone want Stephen to feel as good as they could make him feel.
That sense was borne out a second later as Connor took control, his hands getting Stephen's shirt off and placing kisses on the skin bared by the action. What sent him into delerium, however, was the moment Connor's hand boldly cupped Stephen's aching cock. Because it felt so good and because there was no teasing there, just the rapid build of sensation, and he cried out, "Connor!"
He'd been letting Connor's shockingly skillful maneuvering do all the work, but he needed more contact than that one point of warm, gloved hand and his cock. He reached out, dragging the brilliant geek down into a kiss, and heard Connor's groan, and suddenly all that control and skill evaporated in favour of a sort of desperation that Stephen was quite familiar with. But this wasn't Helen, and he clung to the thrusting hips above him, arching his back, pressing himself forward because everything was good and nothing was wrong.
And he still wanted more. This was fantastic. He was sure he'd come any second now, but he wanted to feel Connor's skin against his and found a reserve of will inside himself to pull away, evade the eager, brilliant hands and get to stripping them both of their clothes. For every bit of his own he took off, Connor's hands were there, grasping and caressing and easing over sweat-slick skin. When they were both finally naked, Connor's self-possession returned and he took control again, a hand between them, pressing the two swollen members togther, driving them both higher and higher until everything whited out in the rush of orgasm.
He was barely aware in the aftermath that Connor had curled into him, and just knew that he could get used to this, falling asleep with a warm, friendly, comforting body next to him.
The contrast between that and the next morning, which seemed to come far too fast and left him mentally staggering, was incredible. One moment he was warm and content, finally relaxed for the first time in longer than he can remember. The next moment, his head aches fiercely, he's nauseous and achy and everything feels wrong and awful, including the fact that Connor's not next to him, but on a chair, wearing nothing but underclothes, so he's not about to rush off, but he's not there, which he'd have preferred.
He'd also have given a lot to be someone who didn't always remember with crystal clarity what he did when pissed. And lord did he remember. He'd unloaded nearly a decade's worth of drama onto Connor's shoulders with never a by-your-leave, then practically mauled the kid . . .
Who'd been brilliant in bed and brilliant before and Stephen, under the pain and nausea and everything else that came with drinking on an empty stomach, felt relaxed and lighter than ever before, and it was all thanks to Connor. "Can I get you some water? That was a hell of a lot of tequila you had last night," Connor offered, looking a little hesitant.
He couldn't think with all the pounding in his head. "Thanks," he managed to get out. "The analgesics are in the lefthand cabinet in the bathroom."
There was a delay as Connor vanished down the corridor, then came back with water and blessed painkillers and after some of that, some food, a bit of time for it all to kick in, he started to feel vaguely human again. But he still felt confused. Because the night before had been amazing, and Stephen was now noticing the way that Connor was lithe and handsome, smart and witty, but he also wondered at the way Connor had been with him, knowing the right thing to say every time and then the way he'd just . . . let himself be with Stephen.
Throughout the day he'd caught Connor glancing at him out of the corner of his eye, an odd sort of wounded look on the former student's face that vanished smoothly behind a mask if he caught someone looking at him.
When he couldn't stand it any longer, Stephen bearded Connor in his lab, because thinking about it all, Connor's words echoing in his head and driving away the spectre of Helen, he knew that there was something there he wanted to explore, wanted to get to know better. "We need to talk."
Connor looked like a deer in the headlamps, frozen and wide-eyed. "Really?" he asked, looking not confused, but panicked. "Why?"
"Does playing therapist and then a night of some of the best sex I've ever had not ring any bells?" he asked Connor dryly. Something in Connor's face showed an internal struggle, and he didn't know why.
And then Connor spoke, and there was fear and doubt and Stephen knew that it was his turn to pay Connor back for his new peace of mind regarding Helen. "It's fine. You needed a friend to talk to, and we both let things go further than we should. It's fine. I mean, it doesn't have to mean anything, we can just . . . let it go. It's fine."
Connor was so skittish that Stephen didn't dare move too much closer, buying some time to figure out what he should be doing by saying, "You do realise you just informed me that it's fine three times just now?" Connor winced at that observation. "Is it that common for you to play therapist, then sex therapist?"
Even as he asked, instinct told him he was right, that it was. That Connor had somehow had reason to develop those skills he'd thought were just talent before. The muttered, "Common enough," told him it was true.
Connor had supported him in every way that night. Had pulled him from his depression and given him the comfort and distraction he'd needed to get out of that spiral. He owed Connor that much, at least, but he wanted more. Because now that he'd seen the depths Connor had, he wanted those depths, to see who was behind the happy grin and bad jokes, and wanted it with an intensity that surprised even himself.
But Connor was retreating inside himself, and Stephen just knew that happy face would crop up again if he didn't say something, stop the defensive walls from coming up. "Connor?" he prompted.
And he bolted to his feet, terrified, shaking with his voice rising with stress and worry. Just . . . it's not important, okay? You needed . . . I just . . . you have what you needed, right? So, we can pretend it didn't happen."
Pretend? No. And once Stephen was set on a course, nothing moved him from it but the most extreme circumstances. He was going to do this, because Connor clearly needed this, and then Stephen was going to find out why. And if he had to find someone to shoot for the shaking terrors Connor was now suffering from, he'd do that, too. "It is important, Connor," carefully. He had to go carefully, this was like stalking a deer. You didn't just fling yourself out of the bushes at them. "You made me see Helen more clearly than I ever have and . . . You made me see you as more than just a friend last night, Connor. You're more than just dependable, you're brilliant and sometimes even funny and I want to see where that night can take us."
Had he been careful enough? Connor was shaking his head, refuting Stephen's statement, refusing to believe it. "Just stop!" he nearly shouted, putting the desk between them, frightened of Stephen now. He was close to breaking, but somehow, Stephen knew that Connor needed to break now. Needed to let go of whatever was choking him, the way he'd helped Stephen get rid of the last of Helen's clinging influence. "I can't do it again, Stephen. I can't let myself fall for someone who just needed someone to get them over a rough patch. It hurts when you leave and act like I didn't feel anything."
It said so much now. So much that Connor had never let on, and Stephen knew what he had to do. Knew he had to prove he cared too, that he'd help Connor over his own rough patches, because Connor deserved that for himself. "You said it's common enough, Connor. What does that mean?"
And tears began to slip from Connor's eyes, and Stephen didn't even know when or how he'd circled the desk to first wipe the tears from Connor's eyes, then hold him through the storm and a story of a boy and then young man who didn't know how to hold back, didn't know how not to protect his friends, even from themselves. Stephen promised himself as he held Connor close and tried to be the rock the younger man needed, that he'd be there to stand between Connor and the people who didn't even know the advantage they were taking. And when the storm was over and he could feel Connor retreating into himself, trying to rebuild the persona he put on, Stephen kissed him instead, coaxing Connor into eager arousal, bringing him to the point of mindless, beautiful, panting want, then brought him over the edge, promising him that he didn't have to be strong anymore.
Connor docilely let himself be redressed and led to the car, smiling shyly from the passenger seat, and twining his fingers with Stephen's as they walked up the stairs to Stephen's flat. Instead of taking control, Connor let Stephen be the one leading this time, a mischievous smile crossing his face suddenly as he declared he'd just lie back and let someone else do the work for a change.
It was all just as brilliant as the first time, and Stephen woke the next morning to utter certainty that this was the first real thing he'd had for himself in years as soft brown eyes and a dimpled smile greeted him that morning.
Read True Love (Connor's PoV)
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