Primeval fanfic: Losing Touch
Title: Losing Touch
Author: SCWLC
Disclaimer: I own none of this, if you sue me, I'm pretty sure all you'll get is gum.
Summary: When Connor's not there on pub night, only Stephen notices.
Rating: R for themes, I guess. I'm bad at the finer points of rating.
A/N: So, shockingly, this is, you'll never guess, an angsty Connor backstory. I'm contemplating a slashy sequel, but the road to recovery is so long for what happens in this thing that I just don't want to deal in the connective tissue I'd need for that, and not to give anything away, but a relationship stemming from this would be unhealthy in the extreme. Now corrected for a detail of UK university degree-related brit-picking by lsellersfic. Thank you for the NB in the comments.
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"Go back to college . . ."
"Just as stupid, maybe."
". . . gullible monster hunter."
"It's . . . slightly sad."
"You idiots."
"Silly arse."
"Clumsy,"
"Stupid,"
"Boyfriend? Oh, God no."
". . . disown you if I could!"
"Just go home."
Tom had always said he needed to stop listening to those voices, that they were bad for him. Tom had always said he fixated on things in an unhealthy way. Duncan had always told him he was smart, smarter than anyone else, and they were all just jealous, that he wasn't ugly and his dad was wrong about uni and everything else.
But Tom was dead and Duncan was scared and all he had left was Abby's disgust, Stephen's disdain and Cutter, Jenny and Lester being cutting. No matter what he did and how hard he worked, he could still hear those voices, telling him he wasn't good enough, smart enough, anything enough. Nothing he did was enough, was worth it, was right. The fact that he was about to ruin every bit of Tom's hard work just went to show he hadn't been worth it. He didn't want to be interrupted, he didn't want to get caught this time, so he went into the ARC as he always did.
He smiled and laughed and told bad jokes and pretended it didn't hurt when every last thing he said was met with derision. When no matter what joke he made, no one laughed, and no matter what idea he suggested garnered laughter. He'd built the ADD and the detection devices and all he got was the snap and snarl of people who seemed to think what he did was easy.
Why was he there? The dinosaurs. He'd wanted to be a paleontologist, not a physicist or a computer scientist. He could have done those. He could have done a lot of things, but it was the dinosaurs that were his passion, and instead of getting to study them, he was building computers.
Abby got to study animal behaviour and Stephen was taking apart the microbiology while Cutter was fitting things into the evolutionary scheme. What was left for him? He wasn't anything, not PhD, not specialist, not tracker or hunter or even involved in real science.
He was nothing. Just a joke.
He left, telling Abby that he was spending the night at Duncan's. They'd never call. No one ever had before when he'd used Duncan as an excuse. They thought as little of him as they did of Connor.
He'd already scouted out a good place, taken what he needed from the ARC's medical bay and packed it up. He just wanted to be someplace where he had, for a moment, felt like he was part of something, like someone cared about him and what he thought. Maybe he'd get really lucky and the mosasaur would come back out and eat him.
********************************
Stephen glanced around the pub, wondering where Connor was. Originally these weekend meetings had been his idea. He'd jokingly suggested that the four of them, as the 'ace team' for the ARC, should get to know each other better. It had been fairly apparent that Connor had a very limited social circle and wanted to create some sort of basis of friendship, use the time to wriggle his way into Abby's heart somehow and try to mimic Stephen and Cutter in the invention of a more 'masculine' persona.
But Connor had started showing up less and less. Saying he was mending fences with his friend Duncan at first, but gradually simply not coming. Now it had been a month since he'd come there at all, and something had been . . . off about him that day. He couldn't put a finger on what was wrong either, just that something about the way Connor had been acting had made Stephen's hackles rise.
"Abby," he asked, "You have any idea where Connor is?"
She shrugged carelessly. "He said something about an evening with Duncan. I decided not to ask. He was going on about Battlestar Galactica again."
"He didn't seem to be acting oddly to you?" He persisted. He wasn't even quite sure why, just that his instincts were saying that something wasn't right.
Nick, on the other side of the table, laughed. "How could you tell? He's always acting oddly." He shrugged. "I'll have to see about how to broach his suggestions for a cross-anomaly radio with Lester."
"It's a good idea," Abby said. "It'd be good to be able to send people through and know what's happening."
The other two were passing a few ideas about the potential of the radio back and forth, but Stephen was just . . . worried. Finally he stood. "You know, since these were all Connor's idea, he really ought to be here. It's been a month since he's come to one. Abby, you know if Duncan's still living where he was before?"
She shrugged. "I think so, but good luck if they're watching some sci-fi series. You'll never escape, I should know."
He left his nearly untouched pint on the table and headed out to the car. It took a few tries to recollect where he was going, but eventually he got there. Parked dangerously close to where he might get ticketed, he shut the door and trotted up the stairs. There was a silence behind that door that felt particularly ominous, considering that the pair were supposed to be watching some show or other. When he knocked, the feeling got worse as there was a lengthy shuffle, until finally the door creaked open.
The flat was still and dark. "What do you want?" the sulky kid asked.
"Connor told Abby he was going to be here tonight," Stephen said by way of explanation.
Duncan looked both confused and irritated. "Well, he's not. Why would he be? He's got his cool new super-secret job at the Home Office, doesn't he?"
He didn't know why, but he figured it was worth asking Duncan about. They'd been friends before, he knew Connor in ways the rest of the team didn't. "I'm worried about him. He wasn't himself today, and now he's lying about where he's going to be." Stephen made himself really focus on Duncan. "I don't suppose you have any idea what might be wrong, do you?"
He'd expected maybe laughter. Maybe bitterness at Connor over Tom's death or Connor's 'super-secret job'. Maybe an eyeroll and dismissal, or even something Connor was keeping a secret that his friend knew about. He didn't expect the eyes to narrow in sudden concentration or the questions that followed. "How wasn't he himself?"
"I couldn't quite put a finger on it," Stephen admitted after a moment. "He was cracking jokes more than usual, but it was a little . . . manic."
The eyes narrowed a little more, and then the question, "Was he . . . was he asking for approval more? Asking a lot of questions maybe? Favours? Trying to get someone to take him up on some scheme or other?"
It was how Duncan was asking that made the chill run up Stephen's back. "Not today. The past week, yeah."
"He didn't do a thing today, did he?" Duncan stated. "He joked and did what he had to do, and didn't volunteer a thing."
"What's wrong?" Stephen demanded.
Duncan vanished into the flat instead, but was out a moment later, wearing a jacket and trainers now, carrying a rucksack into which he was stuffing a torch, first aid kit and a bottle of water. "Do you have a car? It'll be faster if there's a car, and I don't know where he'd be this time. I'm not Tom." He shook his head. "I doubt he'll forget this time, but I'll see if I can't hack the GPS on his mobile. He'll probably have it off now, but maybe we'll be lucky."
The kid was already leading the way down the stairs with that same disaster-inspired sort of alacrity that Connor always displayed. Any other time, the kid was a mess, but put Connor into a crisis and he'd find a way to come through. Duncan, who had seemed a wittering mess of geeky idiocy was calm, if tense, and practically vaulted down the last few steps of the staircase on their way out, making Stephen do the same. "Why do we need to be lucky, Duncan?" Stephen demanded.
"The last time this happened, the last two times, actually, Connor tried to kill himself."
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The manmade lake was quiet this late at night. No holidaymakers lounging about, no screaming children, no lifeguards and no one watching. He stumbled along through the darkness, finding himself an isolated little corner. A small copse of trees and bushes.
It was quiet there, peaceful, and he could silence the voices for a while, remembering those brief moments when he'd thought he might have found his place. Cutter telling him he'd done well with the arthropleura, Abby thanking him for saving her life from the mosasaur, trotting up to that poor woman's flat where she'd found a boa constrictor in her bathroom and that moment when he'd felt like he and Stephen were sort of mates. He closed his eyes, letting those moments wash over him, remembering how good it felt.
A car backfiring in the distance brought him out of it and remembered everything that came after. The eyerolls, the way it all fell apart moments after, the sound of Leek and Jenny laughing at him and the way Stephen looked right past him like he wasn't worth the time, and how Abby looked at him, and he couldn't tell if that was worse, because it was like she saw, but wasn't half pleased with what he had to offer. Duncan flinching away, like he was cursed or something, and maybe he was.
Tom had always been there for him, at least until Connor'd started talking crazy at him. And how had he repaid that? By getting Tom killed. It was his fault. Just like exposing Rex to everyone had been his fault, and probably Stephen wasn't going out with Abby because he thought less of her for letting a great idiot like him stay with her, and he shouldn't have been trying for her anyhow. She deserved better than some gormless prat like him. He should have been happy with what he'd had back home, taking over his dad's garage in time, a steady job and everyone saying that Angie Patterson was just right for him. He could have been married with a spot as partner with his dad by then, but he'd been so determined to make a go of his dreams, breaking up with her because he just didn't like her enough.
The memory of that fallout stung.
"A nice girl like that, and you break it off, why?" his dad demanded. "Because of some stupid idea that you want to go to uni to study bloody dinosaurs? What are you, stupid?"
It was a favourite question every time Connor asked to do something that didn't fit his dad's definition of sensible. It happened a lot. "I've got a full scholarship, dad," he pleaded. "No one has to pay a penny for it. I went to college like you wanted, got my cert in engine maintenance and all, I'll do a joint honours with a business degree, yeah?"
"I don't give a bloody flying fuck what you do now, boy," his dad had growled. "I can't expect you to help with the shop, I can't get you to settle down with a nice girl like that. What is wrong with you? You a bloody poufter now too?"
He mum, before she'd lost it and been taken away, had said his mouth'd get him into trouble. "And if I were?" It didn't matter if it were true or not, he just couldn't help the insolence.
It was too fast, he couldn't dodge the blow. Just suddenly found himself on the floor, his ears ringing and a cut on his cheek stinging on top of the heat of the bruise already coming out. "No son of mine'll be a fairy."
Not that he'd been able to get much in the way of dates at uni, or ever, really. Angie'd only been going out with him because it was expected. Everyone expected it, so he did it. When he'd finally broken away, gone to London and higher education, he'd thought it would be different. Thought he'd find friends, learning, love, the whole lot of it. Turns out he'd watched too many films. The friends had all been fake, temporary agreements based on class assignments and seating habit. There'd been sex, sometimes, but it was a brief shag with someone who just had an itch to scratch. The learning had been something he mostly had to do on his own, because so many classes he'd already read the books and seen the specials and already knew what they had to say.
He'd thought the ARC'd be different, but it wasn't either. So, clearly it was just him.
The white bottle of pills seemed to glow in the moonlight, and the knife, reflecting that light into his eyes, seemed to almost whisper his name, promising to make the voices stop.
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"I met Connor in first year. He was in one of my comp sci classes and I pretty much hated him to start. He was so brilliant. Anything that needed programming he could whip up in an instant, always knew some clever way to deal with an issue and could hack his way into the government with a 1982 IBM compatible and an iPhone." Duncan spoke from the passenger seat as they made their way towards the university campus and he rapidly tapped at his laptop, hissing as he added, "No luck. I was right, his mobile's off." He'd said it would be a good place to start looking.
"I didn't stop being jealous until the day came I discovered that Connor can't write for shit. He's brilliant with code and theory and building things, but hand him a paper to do, and he can't for the life of him string together a sentence," Duncan said, sounding fond. "We started trading favours in class. He'd help me figure out whatever complicated bit of theory I couldn't figure out, I'd read his papers and make sure that all the sentences had periods at the end." He grinned a little. "He was forever getting docked marks for stupid things like grammar and spelling. He just thinks so fast, he doesn't even remember to run the spellchecker."
Stephen winced. "I'd noticed," he replied, recalling some of Connor's more appalling reports. They got all the facts in, often noting things no one else had and throwing out theories that weren't theories so much as entirely logical supposition based on an encyclopaedic knowledge of something prehistoric. But they were a devil to read, and he, Cutter and Abby always traded off turns of being the ones to check Connor's reports over.
"It took most of a year to find out we were in the same first year psychology course," Duncan continued. "There were these general education credits we just had to take. Gradution requirement and all." Stephen nodded and he went on, "So, Tom, who was actually in psychology, wanted to study the human mind and the like, kept going on about how there was something up with Connor. I didn't really see it, but it was Tom who got worried one day when Connor got all, like you put it, manic, and tracked him down." He looked pale even in the darkness of the car. "I'll never forget it, I'd never seen that much blood for real before," he said softly. "It was like in a video game, but it didn't go away, and Connor was so . . ." He looked at Stephen, then said, as though he needed to be sure Stephen got it, said, "He'd slit his wrists, done it in the shower of a locked up pool, turning the water on to make totally sure the blood wouldn't clot."
There was nothing he could say, nothing Stephen could do to understand this. How could someone as brilliant as Connor was, feel like he had nothing to live for?
Duncan continued, mercilessly. "We got him out, bandaged him up, and Tom tried to talk him into seeing a doctor, getting some treatment. Connor refused, tried to play it off as an accident or something at first, then said he couldn't because he wouldn't be able to stay at his studies, and said his dad'd have him home and he'd never escape again."
"Escape?" Stephen asked.
Duncan shrugged. "His words. From what I overheard when he talked to Tom, his dad was an abusive sod, even if Connor didn't want to admit it. He was always going on about earning punishments and the like." He took in a shuddering breath. "Not that I told either of them I'd heard. See, Tom tried to get Connor to see someone, but eventually let Connor somehow talk him into playing therapist."
He wondered how he'd missed this darkness in Connor, missed the kind of trust that had to have been between those three that would have the seemingly childish person beside him show such fortitude at a time like this. "How did that work?" he asked.
"Not good at first," Duncan admitted. "Tom read all the books, tried his best to help, but Connor's good a faking when he doesn't have to lie outright, and at first Tom thought there might be some progress. Then we found Connor in the flat, OD'd on pills. We'd planned, Tom and I, to head out to a con going on in Birmingham. We were supposed to be gone for a few days, so I can only guess that Connor hadn't expected us back so soon. Connor had said he had a major exam and couldn't come out, had to revise or some such." He shook his head. "We should have known better. Connor never studied for a thing in his life."
"Did he ever say why he did it?" Stephen asked, looking for a clue in Connor's behaviour. Wondering if his blackmailing Abby over Rex was a cry for help, or if the way Connor had pestered him at the gun range was the time he could have stopped it.
"I did ask once," Duncan admitted. "He said that it was 'cause it was like there were voices in his head, reminding him of every time someone said he messed up. That he'd sort of hear people's voices telling him that he'd done something wrong." Sunk into contemplation, Duncan slowly continued, as though feeling out the words. "Connor's not always good at reading people, doesn't always find it easy to understand what they mean if they don't say it outright to him. He needs the words."
Stephen frowned at that. "What do you mean?"
"Okay," Duncan said, still clearly groping for the explanation, as they pulled into the car park. "You know how there're some people that are sort of tactile, and if they want to say, 'Well done', they give you a slap on the back or something?" He looked at Stephen, clearly waiting for an acknowledgement, so he nodded. "Well, Connor doesn't understand that. If you slap him on the back, but don't say 'Well done,' he assumes that you don't mean that, and just gets confused about the rest of it."
A memory flashed in Stephen's mind, dodos and the laughter, Connor taking the mick about how Abby hadn't found the gorgonopsid as cute as the stupid birds. He'd leaned on Connor, just being friendly, and the look on Connor's face had been utter confusion. A hint of worry and concern, like he was uncomfortable with it. Words had never been Stephen's forte, preferring to express himself in touch and smiles, relying on implications of banter rather than outright saying things. If what Duncan was saying was true, Connor could certainly have missed that he certainly had a friend in Stephen.
"So, why here?" Stephen asked. "You clearly have something in mind." He needed to understand at least something about what he was tracking before he could track it. It had been one of the great gifts Connor had always offered him in the field. He had an idea of what a panther might do, or an elk or zebra, he knew more or less what the animals were capable of and what sort of environment they were from and in. But when some creature came out of the anomaly, he didn't know. There was only so much he could do if it was something that tended to take to the trees, or could be trusted to head for water. Connor would tell him if it was semi-aquatic or from a savannah. He'd know to look for disturbances higher up or lower down.
But he didn't know enough about Connor, clearly, to track him. And Connor was a human in a city. There was no spoor to trace, no footprints in soft earth, and no starting point. "Connor admitted he was looking for somewhere with a happy memory," Duncan explained. "Somewhere that he had last felt like he belonged, or was safe or something, but also somewhere he wouldn't be found right away."
That made a sort of sense. "So, somewhere on campus with positive associations, you're thinking?" Stephen asked. "I suppose we could see if Cutter's office is still there. He'd seemed pretty comfortable, and I understand it's been closed up, not passed off to someone else."
"Good enough as any," Duncan agreed, and they set out for the life sciences building. It was locked, but before Stephen could do more than curse softly, Duncan had whipped out a set of lockpicks, grinning at Stephen's shock. "How else were we supposed to break into the physics building to put the beetle in that classroom?"
A bark of laughter escaped him. He recalled that stunt. "That was you?"
"Oh, yeah. Connor showed us how to take it apart, and then we rebuilt it overnight."
It had been all over the whole campus the next day, the compromised security system, a car in a classroom, no way for it to have gotten in there except in pieces. There had actually been a whole string of car-related pranks. "I don't suppose the Motor Marauders were the three of you?"
Duncan's smirk was nearly audible. "Tom was the one what figured out how to make all the car alarms in the car park play songs, I did the programming to make them play the Mario Brothers One theme, and Connor handled the electrics. We made a good team."
They got to the office, went in and checked high and low. Nothing. They tried the third floor class in the physics building and checked a few isolated corners and parkettes about. "Damnit," Stephen muttered, trying to think of somewhere that might meet Duncan's criteria. What about places with anomalies?
"I have an idea," he said to Duncan. "I expect you not to noise this about."
"It's something to do with these conspiracies?" Duncan asked shrewdly. After spending some time alone with the student, Stephen had a whole new understanding of Connor, but also of Duncan. Because Connor was too smart to be friends with a moron. Duncan was socially inept and inexperienced, but he was as clever as Connor in a different way, and had a kind of intelligence that made making connections easy.
"I'm not breaking the contract I signed with the Home Office," Stephen warned, "But yes, these locations are where . . . things . . . happened."
Nodding, Duncan said, "Connor did seem really happy about this . . . whatever-it-is. It's worth a try."
Cutter had been very complimentary about Connor's performance with the arthropleura, so that was where they started, working their way into the underground, finding the room where the spiders and centipede had come through. No Connor, although Stephen had an ugly near-flashback to the bite and seeing Helen. "God, I hope he's not at the Forest of Dean," Stephen muttered.
Duncan stared. "We'd never get there in time," he said. "I hope he isn't too."
"Where else . . ." where else would have few enough negative associations for Connor . . . "The reservoir!"
They were nearly caught by the police on the way out, only the fact that Duncan had anticipated the trouble and arranged for an alarm to go off somewhere away from them to distract the officers let them sneak past. "Tom's idea," he explained. "Set up the system to let it alarm, but alarm somewhere else, so that no one's near where you're sneaking out. Did it all the time with campus security."
Then they were on the road again, feeling the clock ticking down, knowing that Connor might already be dead.
******************
First he took the pills. Half of them, enough to numb the pain. It'd let him cut deeper and harder. He was already feeling pretty weak as he wandered into the water, lying down to float on his back the way his mum had taught him when he was little and she was showing him how to swim. He got a few more pills in before he just lost the strength to lift up his hands. He was cold now, but that was okay.
Distantly he thought he might have heard something, but he stopped caring as everything went black.
********************
The reservoir was big, but it took only a moment for Stephen to see the tracks of Connor's boots, something he'd seen a hundred times now, leading away. "Where is he?" Duncan was looking around in a panic, "It's too big, we'll never find him."
"This way," Stephen said, easily following the tracks.
"How do you know?" Duncan demanded, nonetheless following.
Stephen, feeling better now that he was able to be sure of what he was doing, played the torchlight over the ground. "His bootprints. And over there, that bush, he passed by here."
"Connor's right, you are some sort of freaky action hero type."
He ignored the comment, feeling his heart racing. Connor's footsteps had been unhurried, but there was an odd sort of meandering quality that he didn't like. As though Connor had been looking for something. He prayed they'd find him triumphantly holding up some piece of Doctor Who paraphernalia he'd lost and only just realised where it was.
"No!" Duncan gasped, racing down the shore and into the water. He'd spotted Connor first, because Stephen had been following tracks, but Duncan had been looking into the lake. Stephen was right behind him, then passing him, because Duncan was hardly in any sort of decent shape, and they dragged Connor out of the water. Duncan was already on his mobile, calling 999 for an ambulance, while Stephen ripped open Duncan's bag, pulling out bandages to stop the bleeding.
"He's not breathing!" Stephen shouted, vaguely hearing Duncan relay the information into the phone, and tilted Connor's head back, beginning to breathe for him. Duncan came back, holding up a bottle of heavy-duty painkillers, reading the label off to the person on the phone.
It was an eternity before the medics arrived, loading Connor into the ambulance. There wasn't room for them both, and Duncan was still down as one of Connor's emergency contacts. Actually, Connor, with no family to be there for him had Duncan listed as his cousin. Stephen followed in the car, catching up with them in time to answer questions about Connor's recent history, and to hear that they had Connor in surgery, getting his stomach pumped, and that he'd be admitted.
Incredibly, a room had been open, and the coverage from the ARC meant that Connor even had a private room, which was just as well, because Stephen had practically passed out once he'd known that Connor was stable, he and Duncan stationed on the uncomfortable hospital chairs, exhausted from the stress and very long evening. He was woken by his mobile going off, answering on reflex. "Hello?"
"Where the hell are you?" Nick demanded. "Lester's on the warpath, and Connor's not in either-"
"No," Stephen said, interrupting. "He's not and he won't. He's in a hospital bed right now, and I very much doubt he'll be in anytime soon."
"What?" Nick's voice took on that oddly flat quality of someone startled by information, but not quite shocked enough yet to shout.
"He tried to kill himself last night," Stephen said. "Damn near succeeded too."
That got a reaction, "He did what!?"
"Connor. Tried. To. Commit. Suicide," Stephen said. "If it weren't for his friend Duncan, he'd never have been found until it was too late."
"I can't believe it. Connor?" Nick sounded deeply shaken, and Stephen couldn't blame him. Cheerful, happy, brilliant Connor? Suicidal? It was laughable. Or it would have been if he hadn't seen the cuts, the pills, the body already half sunk into the lake.
Stephen sighed. "Just let Lester know Connor's not coming back in, would you? Then tell him that if he can't be reasonably nice, he probably also shouldn't come by yet."
"But why would he . . .?" Nick couldn't seem to bring himself to actually say it, and Stephen couldn't blame him. A groan from behind him on the bed had him hanging up without another thought as he turned back to see Connor waking up.
Duncan was already leaning over his friend. "Hey, Conn," he said shakily. "You know, I sort of thought we'd got you past thinking this would help."
Connor closed his eyes, swallowing, then said to Duncan, "Why'd you bother? You didn't want anything to do with me anyhow."
"You're my friend, Conn. I'm sorry I forgot that."
Voice cracking, Connor said, "You should. You should've forgot all about me. I got Tom killed, yeah?"
"We could have trusted that you weren't lying, we could have not taken the dodo, we could have not bugged you, called you sooner," Duncan was firm. "It was as much my fault and Tom's, Conn. And you tried to help in the end. What did I do? Nothing."
"None of it was your fault, Connor," Stephen added firmly. "You told your friends the truth, and as soon as you knew Tom was in trouble you tried to help. You didn't do a thing wrong."
Connor's eyes had gone wide and he was staring. "Stephen?"
"Yes," Stephen knew what Connor was really asking. "Yes, I'm here."
"But . . . why?" Connor was bewildered. "How'd you even . . . you don't even like me."
Duncan spoke from the other side of the bed. "Connor, remember that talk Tom had with you about nonverbal communication?"
"Yeah . . . I . . . what?" Connor still just looked bewildered.
"I'm not a particularly verbal person Connor," Stephen said, deciding to take the plunge and hope being more explicit wouldn't come back to bite him in the arse. "Yes, I do consider you a friend. It's why I went looking for you tonight. I missed you at pub night. Besides, you know you're the only person at the ARC who likes football?"
Connor didn't have to find a reply to this, because just then the nurse arrived to chastise them both for not calling the moment Connor woke, threw them out and paged the doctor. By the time they were allowed back in, Nick, Abby, Jenny and Lester had all arrived. Stephen stepped back, and felt a dizzying combination of sick over the fact that Connor didn't believe anyone when they told him they liked him, appreciated him, or any variant thereof, and amused over the fact that they actually expected him to just perk up and agree.
"Really? You think I'm such a wonderful person Abby, the least you could do when reassuring people that you'd never date a loser like me is not make it sound like people are asking if you're dating the arthropleura."
Connor's full intellect was suddenly turned to driving people away, as though to prove to himself that he really was so horrible no one could stand him. He snapped and snarled, raking Cutter's theories over the coals, ripping them to pieces with a fine-toothed comb that matched any academic attacks launched at Nick by his academic adversaries over the years. Jenny was reduced to tears and Lester was about the only one who could stand up to Connor's scathing fury, with his own coolly insulting bon mots launching right back.
Actually, when all was said and done, no matter how out of character it was, Connor and Lester both actually seemed to enjoy the volleying of insults back and forth. Lester for finally having an adversary worthy of his mettle, and Connor for having someone to vent at that didn't just run off weeping, or in Nick's case, stagger away in shock over the repressed hostility.
Abby and Duncan both, though, stuck it out. Letting Connor vent his spleen until there was nothing left, then reassuring him that they did care, refusing to let him see either crack. He knew Abby was cracking, though. Had heard her sobbing to Jenny about how it was her fault, she should have seen it, had been there herself and should have known Connor was so close to the edge.
Duncan had taken another tack, pushing and prodding, prying until Connor let details about the ADD out, the pair of them losing themselves in computer-based esoterica, until one day Lester had done something with the therapists in charge of Connor's psychological recovery, and had, on a hunch, brought Duncan into the ARC. The system that Connor had taken days to explain to the various techs that now ran it, took a half an hour to explain to Duncan, and the two spent the rest of the time huddled together behind computers all over the building, magnifying the sensitivity of the system, cleaning up someone's spy programme that had Lester on the warpath to figure out who'd been sabotaging their equipment, and generally proving Duncan's mettle in his area of concentration.
It changed something in Connor to have a friend he trusted to be really his friend there. A brittleness to his smiles and laughter began to vanish, easing into something more genuine in a way that no one had even realised was there. He eased off of Lester, much to the man's apparent disappointment at losing his sparring partner, but even he had to admit that the very sharp-tongued Connor was a tad unnatural. Things smoothed out between Connor and Abby, much to everyone's relief. Nick let Connor back into the paleontology and was pleasantly surprised by Connor's competence, which baffled Stephen, since it had been what Connor was doing his thesis on. But Nick had always had some odd blind spots.
But Connor was still wary around Stephen.
It was after an interminable session with one of the therapists, who had asked to see the individual and group dynamics with Connor, that Stephen found Connor at his front door, looking agitated. "Can I come in?" Connor demanded.
He stepped aside, gesturing Connor in, then following him to the kitchenette. "What do you need?" Stephen asked, noncomittally.
"I don't get it," Connor said, gesturing sharply. "I don't . . ." he shook his head in frustration. "Why would you be friends with me?"
"Because you're smart," Stephen said bluntly. "And you can be funny when you're not telling jokes only you or Duncan would get. You notice you're the only person I watch football with, because you're the only person I know anymore who actually likes football. Too many academics don't watch sports, and all my friends are academics. It's nice to talk to someone I have things in common with," he explained. "And I just happen to like you, Connor. Does there have to be a reason?"
Connor had no reply to this. He seemed to be trying to work through the notion. Stephen waited, wondering what was going on in his head. Finally, though, he decided to put a stop to it before Connor thought himself into a corner. "You know, Tottenham v. Liverpool is on," he said, turning the television to the match, grabbing a pair of bottles and sitting down. He raised an eyebrow and wiggled a bottle at Connor.
He knew he'd got through to his friend when Connor finally relaxed and started making fun of the announcers' commentary. This time, when he rested a hand on Connor's shoulder, passing by to get another beer, he didn't get the wary and confused look, just a clap on the shoulder when he sat back down.
Back to Primeval archive page
Author: SCWLC
Disclaimer: I own none of this, if you sue me, I'm pretty sure all you'll get is gum.
Summary: When Connor's not there on pub night, only Stephen notices.
Rating: R for themes, I guess. I'm bad at the finer points of rating.
A/N: So, shockingly, this is, you'll never guess, an angsty Connor backstory. I'm contemplating a slashy sequel, but the road to recovery is so long for what happens in this thing that I just don't want to deal in the connective tissue I'd need for that, and not to give anything away, but a relationship stemming from this would be unhealthy in the extreme. Now corrected for a detail of UK university degree-related brit-picking by lsellersfic. Thank you for the NB in the comments.
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"Go back to college . . ."
"Just as stupid, maybe."
". . . gullible monster hunter."
"It's . . . slightly sad."
"You idiots."
"Silly arse."
"Clumsy,"
"Stupid,"
"Boyfriend? Oh, God no."
". . . disown you if I could!"
"Just go home."
Tom had always said he needed to stop listening to those voices, that they were bad for him. Tom had always said he fixated on things in an unhealthy way. Duncan had always told him he was smart, smarter than anyone else, and they were all just jealous, that he wasn't ugly and his dad was wrong about uni and everything else.
But Tom was dead and Duncan was scared and all he had left was Abby's disgust, Stephen's disdain and Cutter, Jenny and Lester being cutting. No matter what he did and how hard he worked, he could still hear those voices, telling him he wasn't good enough, smart enough, anything enough. Nothing he did was enough, was worth it, was right. The fact that he was about to ruin every bit of Tom's hard work just went to show he hadn't been worth it. He didn't want to be interrupted, he didn't want to get caught this time, so he went into the ARC as he always did.
He smiled and laughed and told bad jokes and pretended it didn't hurt when every last thing he said was met with derision. When no matter what joke he made, no one laughed, and no matter what idea he suggested garnered laughter. He'd built the ADD and the detection devices and all he got was the snap and snarl of people who seemed to think what he did was easy.
Why was he there? The dinosaurs. He'd wanted to be a paleontologist, not a physicist or a computer scientist. He could have done those. He could have done a lot of things, but it was the dinosaurs that were his passion, and instead of getting to study them, he was building computers.
Abby got to study animal behaviour and Stephen was taking apart the microbiology while Cutter was fitting things into the evolutionary scheme. What was left for him? He wasn't anything, not PhD, not specialist, not tracker or hunter or even involved in real science.
He was nothing. Just a joke.
He left, telling Abby that he was spending the night at Duncan's. They'd never call. No one ever had before when he'd used Duncan as an excuse. They thought as little of him as they did of Connor.
He'd already scouted out a good place, taken what he needed from the ARC's medical bay and packed it up. He just wanted to be someplace where he had, for a moment, felt like he was part of something, like someone cared about him and what he thought. Maybe he'd get really lucky and the mosasaur would come back out and eat him.
********************************
Stephen glanced around the pub, wondering where Connor was. Originally these weekend meetings had been his idea. He'd jokingly suggested that the four of them, as the 'ace team' for the ARC, should get to know each other better. It had been fairly apparent that Connor had a very limited social circle and wanted to create some sort of basis of friendship, use the time to wriggle his way into Abby's heart somehow and try to mimic Stephen and Cutter in the invention of a more 'masculine' persona.
But Connor had started showing up less and less. Saying he was mending fences with his friend Duncan at first, but gradually simply not coming. Now it had been a month since he'd come there at all, and something had been . . . off about him that day. He couldn't put a finger on what was wrong either, just that something about the way Connor had been acting had made Stephen's hackles rise.
"Abby," he asked, "You have any idea where Connor is?"
She shrugged carelessly. "He said something about an evening with Duncan. I decided not to ask. He was going on about Battlestar Galactica again."
"He didn't seem to be acting oddly to you?" He persisted. He wasn't even quite sure why, just that his instincts were saying that something wasn't right.
Nick, on the other side of the table, laughed. "How could you tell? He's always acting oddly." He shrugged. "I'll have to see about how to broach his suggestions for a cross-anomaly radio with Lester."
"It's a good idea," Abby said. "It'd be good to be able to send people through and know what's happening."
The other two were passing a few ideas about the potential of the radio back and forth, but Stephen was just . . . worried. Finally he stood. "You know, since these were all Connor's idea, he really ought to be here. It's been a month since he's come to one. Abby, you know if Duncan's still living where he was before?"
She shrugged. "I think so, but good luck if they're watching some sci-fi series. You'll never escape, I should know."
He left his nearly untouched pint on the table and headed out to the car. It took a few tries to recollect where he was going, but eventually he got there. Parked dangerously close to where he might get ticketed, he shut the door and trotted up the stairs. There was a silence behind that door that felt particularly ominous, considering that the pair were supposed to be watching some show or other. When he knocked, the feeling got worse as there was a lengthy shuffle, until finally the door creaked open.
The flat was still and dark. "What do you want?" the sulky kid asked.
"Connor told Abby he was going to be here tonight," Stephen said by way of explanation.
Duncan looked both confused and irritated. "Well, he's not. Why would he be? He's got his cool new super-secret job at the Home Office, doesn't he?"
He didn't know why, but he figured it was worth asking Duncan about. They'd been friends before, he knew Connor in ways the rest of the team didn't. "I'm worried about him. He wasn't himself today, and now he's lying about where he's going to be." Stephen made himself really focus on Duncan. "I don't suppose you have any idea what might be wrong, do you?"
He'd expected maybe laughter. Maybe bitterness at Connor over Tom's death or Connor's 'super-secret job'. Maybe an eyeroll and dismissal, or even something Connor was keeping a secret that his friend knew about. He didn't expect the eyes to narrow in sudden concentration or the questions that followed. "How wasn't he himself?"
"I couldn't quite put a finger on it," Stephen admitted after a moment. "He was cracking jokes more than usual, but it was a little . . . manic."
The eyes narrowed a little more, and then the question, "Was he . . . was he asking for approval more? Asking a lot of questions maybe? Favours? Trying to get someone to take him up on some scheme or other?"
It was how Duncan was asking that made the chill run up Stephen's back. "Not today. The past week, yeah."
"He didn't do a thing today, did he?" Duncan stated. "He joked and did what he had to do, and didn't volunteer a thing."
"What's wrong?" Stephen demanded.
Duncan vanished into the flat instead, but was out a moment later, wearing a jacket and trainers now, carrying a rucksack into which he was stuffing a torch, first aid kit and a bottle of water. "Do you have a car? It'll be faster if there's a car, and I don't know where he'd be this time. I'm not Tom." He shook his head. "I doubt he'll forget this time, but I'll see if I can't hack the GPS on his mobile. He'll probably have it off now, but maybe we'll be lucky."
The kid was already leading the way down the stairs with that same disaster-inspired sort of alacrity that Connor always displayed. Any other time, the kid was a mess, but put Connor into a crisis and he'd find a way to come through. Duncan, who had seemed a wittering mess of geeky idiocy was calm, if tense, and practically vaulted down the last few steps of the staircase on their way out, making Stephen do the same. "Why do we need to be lucky, Duncan?" Stephen demanded.
"The last time this happened, the last two times, actually, Connor tried to kill himself."
******************************
The manmade lake was quiet this late at night. No holidaymakers lounging about, no screaming children, no lifeguards and no one watching. He stumbled along through the darkness, finding himself an isolated little corner. A small copse of trees and bushes.
It was quiet there, peaceful, and he could silence the voices for a while, remembering those brief moments when he'd thought he might have found his place. Cutter telling him he'd done well with the arthropleura, Abby thanking him for saving her life from the mosasaur, trotting up to that poor woman's flat where she'd found a boa constrictor in her bathroom and that moment when he'd felt like he and Stephen were sort of mates. He closed his eyes, letting those moments wash over him, remembering how good it felt.
A car backfiring in the distance brought him out of it and remembered everything that came after. The eyerolls, the way it all fell apart moments after, the sound of Leek and Jenny laughing at him and the way Stephen looked right past him like he wasn't worth the time, and how Abby looked at him, and he couldn't tell if that was worse, because it was like she saw, but wasn't half pleased with what he had to offer. Duncan flinching away, like he was cursed or something, and maybe he was.
Tom had always been there for him, at least until Connor'd started talking crazy at him. And how had he repaid that? By getting Tom killed. It was his fault. Just like exposing Rex to everyone had been his fault, and probably Stephen wasn't going out with Abby because he thought less of her for letting a great idiot like him stay with her, and he shouldn't have been trying for her anyhow. She deserved better than some gormless prat like him. He should have been happy with what he'd had back home, taking over his dad's garage in time, a steady job and everyone saying that Angie Patterson was just right for him. He could have been married with a spot as partner with his dad by then, but he'd been so determined to make a go of his dreams, breaking up with her because he just didn't like her enough.
The memory of that fallout stung.
"A nice girl like that, and you break it off, why?" his dad demanded. "Because of some stupid idea that you want to go to uni to study bloody dinosaurs? What are you, stupid?"
It was a favourite question every time Connor asked to do something that didn't fit his dad's definition of sensible. It happened a lot. "I've got a full scholarship, dad," he pleaded. "No one has to pay a penny for it. I went to college like you wanted, got my cert in engine maintenance and all, I'll do a joint honours with a business degree, yeah?"
"I don't give a bloody flying fuck what you do now, boy," his dad had growled. "I can't expect you to help with the shop, I can't get you to settle down with a nice girl like that. What is wrong with you? You a bloody poufter now too?"
He mum, before she'd lost it and been taken away, had said his mouth'd get him into trouble. "And if I were?" It didn't matter if it were true or not, he just couldn't help the insolence.
It was too fast, he couldn't dodge the blow. Just suddenly found himself on the floor, his ears ringing and a cut on his cheek stinging on top of the heat of the bruise already coming out. "No son of mine'll be a fairy."
Not that he'd been able to get much in the way of dates at uni, or ever, really. Angie'd only been going out with him because it was expected. Everyone expected it, so he did it. When he'd finally broken away, gone to London and higher education, he'd thought it would be different. Thought he'd find friends, learning, love, the whole lot of it. Turns out he'd watched too many films. The friends had all been fake, temporary agreements based on class assignments and seating habit. There'd been sex, sometimes, but it was a brief shag with someone who just had an itch to scratch. The learning had been something he mostly had to do on his own, because so many classes he'd already read the books and seen the specials and already knew what they had to say.
He'd thought the ARC'd be different, but it wasn't either. So, clearly it was just him.
The white bottle of pills seemed to glow in the moonlight, and the knife, reflecting that light into his eyes, seemed to almost whisper his name, promising to make the voices stop.
**************************
"I met Connor in first year. He was in one of my comp sci classes and I pretty much hated him to start. He was so brilliant. Anything that needed programming he could whip up in an instant, always knew some clever way to deal with an issue and could hack his way into the government with a 1982 IBM compatible and an iPhone." Duncan spoke from the passenger seat as they made their way towards the university campus and he rapidly tapped at his laptop, hissing as he added, "No luck. I was right, his mobile's off." He'd said it would be a good place to start looking.
"I didn't stop being jealous until the day came I discovered that Connor can't write for shit. He's brilliant with code and theory and building things, but hand him a paper to do, and he can't for the life of him string together a sentence," Duncan said, sounding fond. "We started trading favours in class. He'd help me figure out whatever complicated bit of theory I couldn't figure out, I'd read his papers and make sure that all the sentences had periods at the end." He grinned a little. "He was forever getting docked marks for stupid things like grammar and spelling. He just thinks so fast, he doesn't even remember to run the spellchecker."
Stephen winced. "I'd noticed," he replied, recalling some of Connor's more appalling reports. They got all the facts in, often noting things no one else had and throwing out theories that weren't theories so much as entirely logical supposition based on an encyclopaedic knowledge of something prehistoric. But they were a devil to read, and he, Cutter and Abby always traded off turns of being the ones to check Connor's reports over.
"It took most of a year to find out we were in the same first year psychology course," Duncan continued. "There were these general education credits we just had to take. Gradution requirement and all." Stephen nodded and he went on, "So, Tom, who was actually in psychology, wanted to study the human mind and the like, kept going on about how there was something up with Connor. I didn't really see it, but it was Tom who got worried one day when Connor got all, like you put it, manic, and tracked him down." He looked pale even in the darkness of the car. "I'll never forget it, I'd never seen that much blood for real before," he said softly. "It was like in a video game, but it didn't go away, and Connor was so . . ." He looked at Stephen, then said, as though he needed to be sure Stephen got it, said, "He'd slit his wrists, done it in the shower of a locked up pool, turning the water on to make totally sure the blood wouldn't clot."
There was nothing he could say, nothing Stephen could do to understand this. How could someone as brilliant as Connor was, feel like he had nothing to live for?
Duncan continued, mercilessly. "We got him out, bandaged him up, and Tom tried to talk him into seeing a doctor, getting some treatment. Connor refused, tried to play it off as an accident or something at first, then said he couldn't because he wouldn't be able to stay at his studies, and said his dad'd have him home and he'd never escape again."
"Escape?" Stephen asked.
Duncan shrugged. "His words. From what I overheard when he talked to Tom, his dad was an abusive sod, even if Connor didn't want to admit it. He was always going on about earning punishments and the like." He took in a shuddering breath. "Not that I told either of them I'd heard. See, Tom tried to get Connor to see someone, but eventually let Connor somehow talk him into playing therapist."
He wondered how he'd missed this darkness in Connor, missed the kind of trust that had to have been between those three that would have the seemingly childish person beside him show such fortitude at a time like this. "How did that work?" he asked.
"Not good at first," Duncan admitted. "Tom read all the books, tried his best to help, but Connor's good a faking when he doesn't have to lie outright, and at first Tom thought there might be some progress. Then we found Connor in the flat, OD'd on pills. We'd planned, Tom and I, to head out to a con going on in Birmingham. We were supposed to be gone for a few days, so I can only guess that Connor hadn't expected us back so soon. Connor had said he had a major exam and couldn't come out, had to revise or some such." He shook his head. "We should have known better. Connor never studied for a thing in his life."
"Did he ever say why he did it?" Stephen asked, looking for a clue in Connor's behaviour. Wondering if his blackmailing Abby over Rex was a cry for help, or if the way Connor had pestered him at the gun range was the time he could have stopped it.
"I did ask once," Duncan admitted. "He said that it was 'cause it was like there were voices in his head, reminding him of every time someone said he messed up. That he'd sort of hear people's voices telling him that he'd done something wrong." Sunk into contemplation, Duncan slowly continued, as though feeling out the words. "Connor's not always good at reading people, doesn't always find it easy to understand what they mean if they don't say it outright to him. He needs the words."
Stephen frowned at that. "What do you mean?"
"Okay," Duncan said, still clearly groping for the explanation, as they pulled into the car park. "You know how there're some people that are sort of tactile, and if they want to say, 'Well done', they give you a slap on the back or something?" He looked at Stephen, clearly waiting for an acknowledgement, so he nodded. "Well, Connor doesn't understand that. If you slap him on the back, but don't say 'Well done,' he assumes that you don't mean that, and just gets confused about the rest of it."
A memory flashed in Stephen's mind, dodos and the laughter, Connor taking the mick about how Abby hadn't found the gorgonopsid as cute as the stupid birds. He'd leaned on Connor, just being friendly, and the look on Connor's face had been utter confusion. A hint of worry and concern, like he was uncomfortable with it. Words had never been Stephen's forte, preferring to express himself in touch and smiles, relying on implications of banter rather than outright saying things. If what Duncan was saying was true, Connor could certainly have missed that he certainly had a friend in Stephen.
"So, why here?" Stephen asked. "You clearly have something in mind." He needed to understand at least something about what he was tracking before he could track it. It had been one of the great gifts Connor had always offered him in the field. He had an idea of what a panther might do, or an elk or zebra, he knew more or less what the animals were capable of and what sort of environment they were from and in. But when some creature came out of the anomaly, he didn't know. There was only so much he could do if it was something that tended to take to the trees, or could be trusted to head for water. Connor would tell him if it was semi-aquatic or from a savannah. He'd know to look for disturbances higher up or lower down.
But he didn't know enough about Connor, clearly, to track him. And Connor was a human in a city. There was no spoor to trace, no footprints in soft earth, and no starting point. "Connor admitted he was looking for somewhere with a happy memory," Duncan explained. "Somewhere that he had last felt like he belonged, or was safe or something, but also somewhere he wouldn't be found right away."
That made a sort of sense. "So, somewhere on campus with positive associations, you're thinking?" Stephen asked. "I suppose we could see if Cutter's office is still there. He'd seemed pretty comfortable, and I understand it's been closed up, not passed off to someone else."
"Good enough as any," Duncan agreed, and they set out for the life sciences building. It was locked, but before Stephen could do more than curse softly, Duncan had whipped out a set of lockpicks, grinning at Stephen's shock. "How else were we supposed to break into the physics building to put the beetle in that classroom?"
A bark of laughter escaped him. He recalled that stunt. "That was you?"
"Oh, yeah. Connor showed us how to take it apart, and then we rebuilt it overnight."
It had been all over the whole campus the next day, the compromised security system, a car in a classroom, no way for it to have gotten in there except in pieces. There had actually been a whole string of car-related pranks. "I don't suppose the Motor Marauders were the three of you?"
Duncan's smirk was nearly audible. "Tom was the one what figured out how to make all the car alarms in the car park play songs, I did the programming to make them play the Mario Brothers One theme, and Connor handled the electrics. We made a good team."
They got to the office, went in and checked high and low. Nothing. They tried the third floor class in the physics building and checked a few isolated corners and parkettes about. "Damnit," Stephen muttered, trying to think of somewhere that might meet Duncan's criteria. What about places with anomalies?
"I have an idea," he said to Duncan. "I expect you not to noise this about."
"It's something to do with these conspiracies?" Duncan asked shrewdly. After spending some time alone with the student, Stephen had a whole new understanding of Connor, but also of Duncan. Because Connor was too smart to be friends with a moron. Duncan was socially inept and inexperienced, but he was as clever as Connor in a different way, and had a kind of intelligence that made making connections easy.
"I'm not breaking the contract I signed with the Home Office," Stephen warned, "But yes, these locations are where . . . things . . . happened."
Nodding, Duncan said, "Connor did seem really happy about this . . . whatever-it-is. It's worth a try."
Cutter had been very complimentary about Connor's performance with the arthropleura, so that was where they started, working their way into the underground, finding the room where the spiders and centipede had come through. No Connor, although Stephen had an ugly near-flashback to the bite and seeing Helen. "God, I hope he's not at the Forest of Dean," Stephen muttered.
Duncan stared. "We'd never get there in time," he said. "I hope he isn't too."
"Where else . . ." where else would have few enough negative associations for Connor . . . "The reservoir!"
They were nearly caught by the police on the way out, only the fact that Duncan had anticipated the trouble and arranged for an alarm to go off somewhere away from them to distract the officers let them sneak past. "Tom's idea," he explained. "Set up the system to let it alarm, but alarm somewhere else, so that no one's near where you're sneaking out. Did it all the time with campus security."
Then they were on the road again, feeling the clock ticking down, knowing that Connor might already be dead.
******************
First he took the pills. Half of them, enough to numb the pain. It'd let him cut deeper and harder. He was already feeling pretty weak as he wandered into the water, lying down to float on his back the way his mum had taught him when he was little and she was showing him how to swim. He got a few more pills in before he just lost the strength to lift up his hands. He was cold now, but that was okay.
Distantly he thought he might have heard something, but he stopped caring as everything went black.
********************
The reservoir was big, but it took only a moment for Stephen to see the tracks of Connor's boots, something he'd seen a hundred times now, leading away. "Where is he?" Duncan was looking around in a panic, "It's too big, we'll never find him."
"This way," Stephen said, easily following the tracks.
"How do you know?" Duncan demanded, nonetheless following.
Stephen, feeling better now that he was able to be sure of what he was doing, played the torchlight over the ground. "His bootprints. And over there, that bush, he passed by here."
"Connor's right, you are some sort of freaky action hero type."
He ignored the comment, feeling his heart racing. Connor's footsteps had been unhurried, but there was an odd sort of meandering quality that he didn't like. As though Connor had been looking for something. He prayed they'd find him triumphantly holding up some piece of Doctor Who paraphernalia he'd lost and only just realised where it was.
"No!" Duncan gasped, racing down the shore and into the water. He'd spotted Connor first, because Stephen had been following tracks, but Duncan had been looking into the lake. Stephen was right behind him, then passing him, because Duncan was hardly in any sort of decent shape, and they dragged Connor out of the water. Duncan was already on his mobile, calling 999 for an ambulance, while Stephen ripped open Duncan's bag, pulling out bandages to stop the bleeding.
"He's not breathing!" Stephen shouted, vaguely hearing Duncan relay the information into the phone, and tilted Connor's head back, beginning to breathe for him. Duncan came back, holding up a bottle of heavy-duty painkillers, reading the label off to the person on the phone.
It was an eternity before the medics arrived, loading Connor into the ambulance. There wasn't room for them both, and Duncan was still down as one of Connor's emergency contacts. Actually, Connor, with no family to be there for him had Duncan listed as his cousin. Stephen followed in the car, catching up with them in time to answer questions about Connor's recent history, and to hear that they had Connor in surgery, getting his stomach pumped, and that he'd be admitted.
Incredibly, a room had been open, and the coverage from the ARC meant that Connor even had a private room, which was just as well, because Stephen had practically passed out once he'd known that Connor was stable, he and Duncan stationed on the uncomfortable hospital chairs, exhausted from the stress and very long evening. He was woken by his mobile going off, answering on reflex. "Hello?"
"Where the hell are you?" Nick demanded. "Lester's on the warpath, and Connor's not in either-"
"No," Stephen said, interrupting. "He's not and he won't. He's in a hospital bed right now, and I very much doubt he'll be in anytime soon."
"What?" Nick's voice took on that oddly flat quality of someone startled by information, but not quite shocked enough yet to shout.
"He tried to kill himself last night," Stephen said. "Damn near succeeded too."
That got a reaction, "He did what!?"
"Connor. Tried. To. Commit. Suicide," Stephen said. "If it weren't for his friend Duncan, he'd never have been found until it was too late."
"I can't believe it. Connor?" Nick sounded deeply shaken, and Stephen couldn't blame him. Cheerful, happy, brilliant Connor? Suicidal? It was laughable. Or it would have been if he hadn't seen the cuts, the pills, the body already half sunk into the lake.
Stephen sighed. "Just let Lester know Connor's not coming back in, would you? Then tell him that if he can't be reasonably nice, he probably also shouldn't come by yet."
"But why would he . . .?" Nick couldn't seem to bring himself to actually say it, and Stephen couldn't blame him. A groan from behind him on the bed had him hanging up without another thought as he turned back to see Connor waking up.
Duncan was already leaning over his friend. "Hey, Conn," he said shakily. "You know, I sort of thought we'd got you past thinking this would help."
Connor closed his eyes, swallowing, then said to Duncan, "Why'd you bother? You didn't want anything to do with me anyhow."
"You're my friend, Conn. I'm sorry I forgot that."
Voice cracking, Connor said, "You should. You should've forgot all about me. I got Tom killed, yeah?"
"We could have trusted that you weren't lying, we could have not taken the dodo, we could have not bugged you, called you sooner," Duncan was firm. "It was as much my fault and Tom's, Conn. And you tried to help in the end. What did I do? Nothing."
"None of it was your fault, Connor," Stephen added firmly. "You told your friends the truth, and as soon as you knew Tom was in trouble you tried to help. You didn't do a thing wrong."
Connor's eyes had gone wide and he was staring. "Stephen?"
"Yes," Stephen knew what Connor was really asking. "Yes, I'm here."
"But . . . why?" Connor was bewildered. "How'd you even . . . you don't even like me."
Duncan spoke from the other side of the bed. "Connor, remember that talk Tom had with you about nonverbal communication?"
"Yeah . . . I . . . what?" Connor still just looked bewildered.
"I'm not a particularly verbal person Connor," Stephen said, deciding to take the plunge and hope being more explicit wouldn't come back to bite him in the arse. "Yes, I do consider you a friend. It's why I went looking for you tonight. I missed you at pub night. Besides, you know you're the only person at the ARC who likes football?"
Connor didn't have to find a reply to this, because just then the nurse arrived to chastise them both for not calling the moment Connor woke, threw them out and paged the doctor. By the time they were allowed back in, Nick, Abby, Jenny and Lester had all arrived. Stephen stepped back, and felt a dizzying combination of sick over the fact that Connor didn't believe anyone when they told him they liked him, appreciated him, or any variant thereof, and amused over the fact that they actually expected him to just perk up and agree.
"Really? You think I'm such a wonderful person Abby, the least you could do when reassuring people that you'd never date a loser like me is not make it sound like people are asking if you're dating the arthropleura."
Connor's full intellect was suddenly turned to driving people away, as though to prove to himself that he really was so horrible no one could stand him. He snapped and snarled, raking Cutter's theories over the coals, ripping them to pieces with a fine-toothed comb that matched any academic attacks launched at Nick by his academic adversaries over the years. Jenny was reduced to tears and Lester was about the only one who could stand up to Connor's scathing fury, with his own coolly insulting bon mots launching right back.
Actually, when all was said and done, no matter how out of character it was, Connor and Lester both actually seemed to enjoy the volleying of insults back and forth. Lester for finally having an adversary worthy of his mettle, and Connor for having someone to vent at that didn't just run off weeping, or in Nick's case, stagger away in shock over the repressed hostility.
Abby and Duncan both, though, stuck it out. Letting Connor vent his spleen until there was nothing left, then reassuring him that they did care, refusing to let him see either crack. He knew Abby was cracking, though. Had heard her sobbing to Jenny about how it was her fault, she should have seen it, had been there herself and should have known Connor was so close to the edge.
Duncan had taken another tack, pushing and prodding, prying until Connor let details about the ADD out, the pair of them losing themselves in computer-based esoterica, until one day Lester had done something with the therapists in charge of Connor's psychological recovery, and had, on a hunch, brought Duncan into the ARC. The system that Connor had taken days to explain to the various techs that now ran it, took a half an hour to explain to Duncan, and the two spent the rest of the time huddled together behind computers all over the building, magnifying the sensitivity of the system, cleaning up someone's spy programme that had Lester on the warpath to figure out who'd been sabotaging their equipment, and generally proving Duncan's mettle in his area of concentration.
It changed something in Connor to have a friend he trusted to be really his friend there. A brittleness to his smiles and laughter began to vanish, easing into something more genuine in a way that no one had even realised was there. He eased off of Lester, much to the man's apparent disappointment at losing his sparring partner, but even he had to admit that the very sharp-tongued Connor was a tad unnatural. Things smoothed out between Connor and Abby, much to everyone's relief. Nick let Connor back into the paleontology and was pleasantly surprised by Connor's competence, which baffled Stephen, since it had been what Connor was doing his thesis on. But Nick had always had some odd blind spots.
But Connor was still wary around Stephen.
It was after an interminable session with one of the therapists, who had asked to see the individual and group dynamics with Connor, that Stephen found Connor at his front door, looking agitated. "Can I come in?" Connor demanded.
He stepped aside, gesturing Connor in, then following him to the kitchenette. "What do you need?" Stephen asked, noncomittally.
"I don't get it," Connor said, gesturing sharply. "I don't . . ." he shook his head in frustration. "Why would you be friends with me?"
"Because you're smart," Stephen said bluntly. "And you can be funny when you're not telling jokes only you or Duncan would get. You notice you're the only person I watch football with, because you're the only person I know anymore who actually likes football. Too many academics don't watch sports, and all my friends are academics. It's nice to talk to someone I have things in common with," he explained. "And I just happen to like you, Connor. Does there have to be a reason?"
Connor had no reply to this. He seemed to be trying to work through the notion. Stephen waited, wondering what was going on in his head. Finally, though, he decided to put a stop to it before Connor thought himself into a corner. "You know, Tottenham v. Liverpool is on," he said, turning the television to the match, grabbing a pair of bottles and sitting down. He raised an eyebrow and wiggled a bottle at Connor.
He knew he'd got through to his friend when Connor finally relaxed and started making fun of the announcers' commentary. This time, when he rested a hand on Connor's shoulder, passing by to get another beer, he didn't get the wary and confused look, just a clap on the shoulder when he sat back down.
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