Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Ned was watering his little herb garden on the windowsill above the sink when Conor got the phone call. He’d never ever remember what time it was, just that it was after dark in November, so some time after six or so in the evening.

‘Ma—? What? What happened? Is he—oh no. Oh God no. Was anyone else hurt—okay. I’ll be there as soon as I can. I’ll leave right now,’ and he hung up and sat his cell phone down on the table.

Ned felt a chill—the persistent chill of when something has gone very, very wrong. He sat down the cup he was using to water his plants and turned what felt like very slowly to face Conor.

‘My dad—he’s dead. He drove while drunk and this happened. Ned—I haven’t spoken to him in over a year.’

And Ned went to Conor—hesitant before touching until Conor leaned ever so slightly towards him, and Ned took him up in his arms, burying Conor’s dry face against his chest.

‘How do you feel?’

‘My mom needs me.’

‘Do you need me?’

‘Yes.’

And so Ned packed a bag for Conor and a backpack for himself, planning on calling in sick for work the next day, and the day after too probably, packed the bags and Conor into the car, and Ned drove them off into the night, the Doors playing on the stereo and Conor silent in the passenger seat.

A half hour later they were at the house of the former-Mrs Masters, now Lindy Something-or-other again. She was at the side of the car before they were even properly out, embracing Conor, and whispering something to him that Ned couldn’t hear as she ushered him inside, standing in the doorway for Ned.

‘I—your son—asked me to come.’

She smiled her sad smile—‘I wouldn’t have it any other way,’ and there was the slightest trace of kind irony in her voice as she patted him on the shoulder.

She made them all tea—chamomile because it was late. ‘All the logistics, everything, can wait until tomorrow. For now, let’s all just go to bed.’

And so they did. Ned encouraged Conor through the steps of preparing for sleep and then they were alone, in the dark, in Conor’s childhood bed, when the weight of the situation really hit Ned.

Ned hadn’t met Mr Masters until partway through their first year of uni, in the most disastrous best-mate-meets-the-parents visit home of all time. It was one of the rare occasions where Mr Masters was neither drunk nor working and, while he couldn’t help but fear who his gay son’s best friend would be, he was willing to greet said best friend with figuratively open arms.

But then said best friend was Ned Roche—a loud and witty and skinny and angular English literature student, everything the image of Conor, that is, everything a good son, to Mr Masters, was not supposed to be. (What made it worse was at the time Ned’s hair was dyed black, which looked horrendous and unnatural but Ned couldn’t very well dye over it.)

And yes, he was guessing they were together because of course he was, but had no proof until he saw them alone in a hallway, Conor bending his head down for Ned to plant a kiss on his forehead. The gentlest, queerest action. It may have been better had they just been snogging against the wall.
The ensuing kerfuffle was not something that Ned remembered, but he remembered hearing Conor say, ‘Go, Ned!’ and then Ned was sitting on a bench across the street, catching his breath and shaking.

Then Conor’s ma threw his dad out of the house, while Conor packed whatever his dad would need, because at the end of the day, he was Conor and, while he may anger easily, he was far too kind.

The whole fiasco lasted fifteen minutes, with Ned watching it unfold from across the street, and then Mr Master was gone and Ned was back in the house and Conor’s ma was hugging him and crying while Conor looked on helplessly.

The day Ned Roche singlehandedly broke up a family. The last day Conor had spoken to his dad.

Mrs Masters said nothing on the topic of her son’s relationship with Ned the whole afternoon, as she and her son, with Ned’s help, pieced their lives together as they purged the house of Conor’s father’s presence.

She hugged Ned goodbye at the end of the day, before they left for Dublin, and she didn’t say it because she was far too kind, but her eyes flashed momentarily as if to say, ‘I sure hope you’re worth it.’

Finally, finally, the memories of one of the worst days of his life dissolved into sleep.

He blearily came to at 5 in the morning, Conor deeply asleep next to him—the deep sleep of someone whose mind has been worn out. He dressed, uncomfortable wandering barefoot and in pajamas in a house that wasn’t his own, grabbed a book, and headed downstairs, to find Lindy sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee.

‘Hello?’

She sighed deeply. ‘Hello, Ned,’ she said, and breathed, but other words seemed tangled in her mouth.

Ned sat down across from her, waiting for her to speak.

‘Conor’s father has nobody else. Had nobody else,’ she corrected herself. ‘He had no close family, and who he did have abandoned him—his sister. She’s driving in later today to sign something. I called her and told her what happened as soon as you all left that day he left last year. She said nobody treated her nephew like that.’ She paused a very long time. ‘Because of his own failures, they left him and I have to bury him. Because I’m his ex-wife. The mother of the son he decided all too late he didn’t want.’

Ned tentatively reached to pat her hand across the table—she turned her hand over and intertwined their fingers.

‘You’re a good man.’

‘I wouldn’t consider myself a man.’

‘You’re more of one than Conor’s father was.’

‘Well, thank you.’

‘Do you want some coffee?’

‘Yes, please,’ and she released his hand and got for it for him.

‘I knew,’ she said, adding the dash of milk she knew Ned liked. ‘About you and my son, before he found out that day. Conor is someone else with you—he’s the person he’s supposed to be when he’s with you. He’s just truly himself,’ was a declaration she punctuated by touching the mug to the table top as she sat back down. ‘And I realized that the first time I saw the two of you together, when I picked up Conor the last day of his first year at Wood Hill. I saw his face right before we walked down the hallway—the both of you trying very hard to not look like you cared so much to be parted. I realized you would, one day, be sitting at my breakfast table, drinking coffee with me while Conor was asleep upstairs.’

‘Conor thought you found out that day. The day. Here.’

She smiled Conor’s own smile and Ned’s heart lurched—Conor’s physical presence echoed in somebody else’s as the further justification of his existence in the corporeal world. ‘Conor can be quite clueless sometimes.’

‘Yes, he can,’ and Ned realized he was the quiet one for once. This was the most he’d ever heard Lindy say. She was normally as quiet and laconic as Conor, even more so, her words spare and wrapped in meanings he’d never quite grasp. ‘He’s good though. The kindest person. And…’ and here he stuttered—talking about life with his boyfriend’s mother was more ridiculous in practice than in theory, but, painfully, he made eye contact with her. ‘I’m sorry you have to bury him. Mr Masters. You’re very, very kind.’

She smiled her sad smile, the one that wasn’t Conor’s but her own. The smile of someone shouldering far too much and without the youth to make it bearable.

Chapter Text

When Conor woke up, they all had a breakfast of porridge and Ned drove them all, in silence, to the hospital for Conor to officially identify his father’s body. Conor, as next of kin, signed some paperwork regarding the cremation and agreed to go pick up the remains the next day.

‘What’ll you do them? The ashes?’ asked Ned once they were back in the car.

‘I don’t know,’ said Conor from his spot in the backseat.

‘I don’t want them,’ said Lindy, very suddenly from the passenger seat.

Conor laughed and Lindy laughed and Ned laughed and it was fine.

That didn’t mean they understood why they were doing what they were doing. Why they were taking time not so much to grieve a man, as to grieve the space he had occupied. A father lost before he was one. The loss of the potential for someone to be good.

‘If he were good,’ said Conor to Ned in Conor’s bedroom early that afternoon, in the lull in the day before they went out to lunch, ‘he would have apologized. He would have been brave and faced me and apologized. But he didn’t.’

Ned knelt before Conor, who was sat on the bed, and took his hands. ‘Don’t feel bad. You’re right.’

‘Then why am I doing it? Why am I doing all this for him?’

‘I don’t know.’ Ned’s voice was small and he stood up and crossed the room.

‘I know why I’m doing it but that still doesn’t mean I understand why. I’m doing this for a father—not for him…’ Conor trailed off.

‘For the idea of a father?’

‘That’s it. The idea of a father.’

Conor’s aunt, Mr Masters’s sister, met them at a café that Lindy frequented. She embraced Lindy first—the detached closeness of those with nothing in common but bound if not by blood, by family, and then her own blood Conor, and patted Ned firmly on the shoulder.

‘How’s everyone holding up?’

‘Well,’ said Lindy, and, in her way, she meant it. Conor nodded likewise and Ned neither said nor did anything. Yes. Yes, he was affected. Of course he was affected. But this was not his life. He’d met Mr Masters once and that had been disastrous.

‘Would we rather discuss business?’

‘Yes,’ said Conor quietly and firmly.

‘Of course,’ and she pulled a notebook out of her purse and sat it on the table. ‘Because you’re young and you’re my nephew, I obviously won’t fight you for anything, but I will ask for a couple thousand to help with Jerry’s school tuition fees.’ Jerry was her thirteen year old son, who’d seen his uncle only a handful of times in his life and was incapable of caring..

‘Of course, of course. I have a job, and so does Ned. We support ourselves very well.’

Mary, though kind to Ned, was visibly slightly taken aback by this acknowledgement of her nephew’s shared finances, not with a young man specifically, but with anybody. He was her nephew, after all, and he seemed so young. Was so young.

Then at the town hall they signed some more papers, this time regarding the dividing up of the estate. While Mary was protective of her nephew, she, like her sister-in-law and aforementioned nephew, was not much of a talker, and, as soon as she was assured everything was fine, she bailed to go to the small town nearby where she lived with her own family. She’d grieved her brother and Lindy her husband and Conor his father all back when they’d cut him out. There was no more grieving to do. He’d killed his image in their hearts that day.

That evening, amidst the idleness of those not-really-grieving, Conor said, ‘I really don’t care about his money. I mean, I’ll take it. I am taking it. I signed to take it. But that’s not why I’m here, managing his affairs. I’m giving most of it to my ma anyway. She should retire.’ And Conor chewed his lip for a moment, Ned watching, waiting for him to finish his thought. ‘And part of it to Aunt Mary. I will never understand why I care about the idea of a father.’

‘You don’t have to.’

Conor said nothing and they went downstairs to make dinner with Lindy.

Tomorrow Conor went to pick up his father’s ashes and that would be the complete end of his relationship with his father or his idea of a father. After the late dinner, they undressed in Conor’s bedroom but Conor pulled Ned onto the bed before the latter could finish getting his pajamas on. They kissed for a while but Ned tired and turned onto his back to face the ceiling. Conor followed suit.

‘It’s been a long day,’ said Ned, not broaching the topic.

‘Yes, it has,’ said Conor, also not broaching the topic.

‘It’s been a long day and we didn’t even do anything.’

‘We thought a lot.’

‘That we did,’ and he leaned over to kiss Conor again, palely and chastely this time, and then lay back down, a gentle glow permeating the aether within the air. But the glow soon turned sour and sickly and Conor spoke:

‘I hate that I feel nothing any more about my father.’

‘Maybe that’s the best thing to feel in your case. Nothing,’ and he tucked an errant strand of overgrown fringe back to the side of Conor’s face.

‘I love that everything always feels new—with you. The guys,’ said Conor, referring to those he knew from rugby, ‘go through girlfriends like mad. Say they get tired of them. But I never get tired of you.’

‘I talked to Mr Sherry—Dan, about this once, and he said us two have grown together. Predestination in retrospect. That’s why we’re inseparable.’

‘Is Mr Sherry a Calvinist?’ smiled Conor.

‘I dunno,’ said Ned, smirking, now genuinely wondering, because many Calvinists were gay.

A pause.

‘It makes me uncomfortable,’ said Ned suddenly. ‘That none of us care. That’s what’s bothering me, that we’re capable of not caring.’

‘You told me not to worry about not caring.’

‘That doesn’t mean I won’t worry.’

‘You know that means you’re a good person, right?’

‘Perhaps,’ said Ned and got off the bed to finish getting into his pajamas.

The next morning they had breakfast and coffee and Conor hugged his mother good bye, and she hugged Ned good bye, and whispered in his ear, ‘Take care of each other.’

He smiled and said, his voice low, ‘Take care of yourself.’

She pursed her lips and suddenly the sadness of losing a man who once her husband overtook her and then she was suddenly upright in her neutral state, as if a cloud had briefly passed over her soul, or someone had walked over her grave.

They stopped at the mortuary and picked up the urn, and were back in Dublin within an hour. Their world was entirely back to normal and the only change was slightly greater financial stability and a blue urn of human ashes on the bookshelf in the living room.

‘You should’ve put him in a coffee can,’ said Ned, hands in his pockets, staring at the urn while Conor made some tea. ‘Like in The Big Lebowski.’

‘I don’t know what that is,’ said Conor, emerging from the kitchen with two mugs.

‘Shit—it’s this brilliant movie about basically nothing—‘

‘Sounds like your kind of movie,’ smiled Conor.

‘Twat,’ said Ned, taking the mug. ‘But no it’s hysterical. You’ll love it.’.

Ned turned his mug in his hands. ‘Love,’ and he smiled and Conor was kissing him and the mugs were sat on the bookshelf and they were horizontal on the couch.

Conor got Ned’s shirt undone and was working his way down his chest, with Ned’s hands carding through his hair. ‘Conor, ‘it’s been three years of having sex with you and I’m still not tired of it.’

‘You better not be—‘ and Conor got his trousers undone. ‘All the work I put in.’

Sometimes, lying very still at night, Ned imagines the world where Mr Masters never caught them in the hallway. Where Ned ducked into the guest room before Mr Masters was even on the landing and Conor went to his childhood bedroom to unpack and that night Ned crept in the darkness to Conor’s childhood bedroom.

Instead, in their world, that night, they went home, leaving the then-soon-to-be former-Mrs Masters by herself in her big house. She told them she wanted to be with her thoughts. That night, Ned imagined her alone in her designated chair in the library—old and wooden and with burgundy velvet padding, an heirloom from old money, from her grandfather, she'd told Ned once. Alone in her chair, hearing her thoughts echo off the papered walls, and, imagining this, Ned felt very afraid of age.

Chapter Text

Uni classes started back two weeks after Conor's dad died.

Obviously they had wound up going to the same uni. Obviously. Ned chose to study English because, as he said, ‘That’s all I’m good at.’ Conor picked some vague policy course, because that seemed the least bad of what was practical.

September 2016

Mr Sherry and Ned were on a walk, talking about the ending of Crime and Punishment.

‘It really makes up for the sadness and devastation and pathos of the whole book, doesn’t it? Those few paragraphs of gentleness.’

Dan laughed. ‘It’s a math thing. The ratio of bad to good is too high.’

‘But isn’t life the same way? More bad than good and yet we live it.’

Dan’s steps stilled to a halt. Ned kept walking, unaware his teacher had stopped. ‘It’s time to apply for uni soon.’

‘Ugh,’ and Ned stage-fell to the ground.

Dan was unphased and walked over to stand beside him. Ned staggered to his feet. ‘You’re gonna have to go.’

‘I know.’

They kept walking.

‘I know,’ said Ned again, gently and quietly. Dan could tell he, the quiet nonconformist, was musing to himself, thinking of his various other plans for his life.

‘I don’t mean because people say you have to go. I mean you have to go for you.’

This time Ned halted. ‘For me?’

‘Yes. It’ll be good for you. You don’t have to do anything for anybody, your whole life. You can waste your brain later—but for now, see what it can do. Go to uni. I’ll be your reference.’

‘Think I can even get in anywhere good with the whole expulsion thing on my record?’

‘With the strength of your writing? Winning the national essay competition? Of course you can.’

They kept walking.

‘Conor’s going,’ Ned said quietly. ‘To uni, that is.’

‘I know. I’m his reference.’

‘I don’t want to go, Mr Sherry. It’s miserable. School. Work. Society. Being shuffled from place to place. I am useless and so I *want* to be useless.’

‘But you’ll go for Conor?’

‘He already asked me to come to UCD with him.’

‘Will you be going?’

‘I’m not Catholic. I’m not religious.’

‘You don’t have to be Catholic to go to UCD. If Conor wanted to go to Trinity would you say you weren’t Anglican?’

‘Well, yeah. Fuck the English.’

Mr Sherry laughed.

‘I’m going to UCD,’ admitted Ned.

Mr Sherry wrote Ned’s reference.

The pair sitting in his classroom after the school day:

‘What will you study?’

‘English, I suppose. I’m not really good at anything else.’

‘Well what course in English?’

‘There’s more than one?’

Mr Sherry sighed. ‘If this school wasn’t practically off the grid I wouldn’t have to explain the Goddamn higher educational system to every student.’ And Mr Sherry pushed the undergraduate prospectus for UCD at Ned.

Ned flicked through it and stared in confusion. ‘Uhh,’ he said. ‘English with creative writing?’

‘That’s what I expected,’ said Mr Sherry who resumed scribbling notes.

Ned was getting fidgety—Mr Sherry could practically see the kid’s brain racing around his skull through his eyes.

Sherry sat the pen down. ‘Tell me Ned…’ and he paused a beat too long—

‘Yes. The answer’s yes.’ He spoke as if he words had been dragged out of him—with all the relief of being unburdened that entailed.

‘I didn’t even ask the question.’

‘What was your question?’

‘What did you think my question was?’

‘You first.’

‘Fine. I was asking if you truly had no idea what you wanted to do with your life.’

Ned’s expression hesitated, fearful—it was apparent this was not the question he had thought Mr Sherry was going to ask.

‘You have a secret Ned.’

‘What makes you think that?’

The corner of Mr Sherry’s mouth quirked up. ‘You can tell me whatever you need to.’

‘I’m good, but thank you, sir,’ and Ned very nearly winked but didn’t.

Sometimes Ned thinks about the first time they fucked—properly, in the ‘straight’ sense of the word, back when their lives weren’t their own and moments were only ever stolen, and what all of that means. Their first night in uni halls, Conor came to his room and one thing led to another and Ned admitted he’d bought lubricant that afternoon and Conor said, ‘Good,’ and they figured out what to do.

He remembers their fingers intertwining that night, the thin sheen of sweat laying on their skins, and how he felt no different than before. Sexually satisfied, yes, and in a different way than usual—such as when they took each other in hand with teeth and tongues clashing, but really? No different.

He didn’t feel as if he’d lost his virginity because he’d always felt he said good bye to whatever that was way back when he first realized the very specific mental image that he wanted to go down on Conor, back when they were 16 and 17 and only knew what oral was in theory. As if the longing and intention killed, if not his hypothetical purity, the part of him decidedly disinterested in everyone in any greater-than-theoretical capacity.

Yes, he knew he was queer, but never truly wondered how to implement into practice such queerness until he had his tongue in Conor’s mouth while Conor’s hands trailed along his ass and Ned knew that he wanted Conor in every way Conor would give him—Conor—tall and inordinately, unconventionally lovely. He remembers the reverbation deep in his innards the first time they deepened their kiss and he felt legitimate desire and legitimate need for the first time in his life. Would he dare say he also felt love?

Whatever it was that he felt burned through his insides, leaving what felt like welts on his heart and holes in his intestines, and he wanted to feel as much of that feeling as he ever could. Stopping kissing that night was the hardest thing he’d ever done. He never wanted to do anything else ever, but just kiss Conor until they suffocated, until they’d sapped all the oxygen from their shared air, until they’d sapped all the oxygen from the entire world.

Chapter Text

First day of term, Ned had a meeting with a professor about his undergraduate thesis. ‘Post-punk lyrics within the literary canon,’ was his pitch and it was approved, albeit with a skeptical eye brow raise.

Afterwards, slightly annoyed and determined to make his thesis work, he met up with a friend, Oakley, for lunch at a bagel place near the university.

‘Sure has been a while,’ said Oakley swinging her satchel down into a chair and sitting down in an adjacent one.

‘Sure has,’ agreed Ned, already sipping a coffee. ‘Been busy. Conor’s family and everything.’ He didn’t mention it’d been a two day ordeal and he’d spent the following two weeks doing jackshit.

‘Yeah, I’m so sorry about that. About everything that happened with Conor’s dad.’

‘He’s as fine as he’ll ever be.’

Oakley nodded, fishing in her bag for her wallet, and said, ‘I’ll go order.’

‘You do that,’ and Ned practically felt himself blink out of existence as she made her way to the counter, leaving him alone at the table in the crowded bagel cafe. Am I losing my mind? he wondered, but thankfully she was back, a cup of coffee in hand, and then his name was being called and he was smiling at Oakley—‘that’s me’—waking over, taking his bagel, and sitting back down.

‘So how’ve you been?’ she asked.

‘Fine,’ and he began to unwrap his bagel. ‘How about yourself—?’

‘You don’t seem fine.’

‘Answer my question and then I’ll answer yours properly.’

‘I’m alive. Is that a good enough response?’ She smirked, but concern and annoyance flickered across her face.

‘Yes,’ and he felt himself blush. ‘No, I’m not okay. Something’s wrong and I don’t know what it is.’ He paused. ‘I’m writing my thesis, I’m applying to post grad programs, and to jobs.’

‘Maybe that’s just it. Your life is too normal. Too together. You have a stable, steady relationship and a decent part time job. I remember when I met you. You were so unhappy to be at uni. Almost unhappy to be alive.’

‘I had no idea what to be. And I still don’t have an idea. What am I gonna do? Drop out, break up with Conor, move to, I dunno, America?’

‘You don’t have to do any of that and, honestly, you shouldn’t. But you have to make some changes if you’re wanna not be miserable.’

‘Do you think I sold out?’

‘What?’ said Conor, plucking some mint from Ned’s mint plant above the sink and depositing the sprig in a cup of chamomile tea.

‘Did I sell out?’

‘How would you have sold out?’ He situated himself in a kitchen chair, one leg crossed over the other, while Ned stewed about in the air above him.

‘When I was 16, I said I was basically unemployable and that I didn’t want to go to uni and that I just wanted to be free. But now—I don’t know if I want that.’

‘What do you want?’ Sip.

‘That’s it—I don’t know. So I don’t know if I’m doing the right thing by not only getting a degree, but applying for an MPhil too. What am I gonna do?’

‘C’mere,’ And Conor gestured at his lap, onto which Ned sat.

‘Ned, you’re not the same person you were when you were 16.’

‘Well then why are you still with me?’

Conor was visibly taken aback and Ned almost expected him to push him off, but he was Conor so he placed a hand on the back of Ned’s neck. ‘Ned, I’m with you because you’re better than you were.’

‘Because I’m in uni and working a normal job?’

‘No, because you’re not doing things just because you think you should do them. You’re not trying to get expelled for shits and grins, but studying hard because you love books and reading. You’re passionate.’

‘Am I? Because I feel like I’m doing what I’m supposed to.’

‘But wouldn’t it be worse if you were not doing what you were supposed to only because you weren’t supposed to and not because you didn’t actually want to?’

‘Conor, you’re something else.’

‘No, you are.’

Ned laughed. ‘Okay, we’re both something else.’

 It would be a lie for Conor to say he was unaffected by his dad’s death. It would also be a lie for him to say he was only affected by the loss of an idea of a dad. It would be a lie to say his mind wasn’t stewing that night, while Ned slept fitfully next to him, his own mind full of its own thoughts.

Because, before his father had become a drunk, he had been Conor’s dad. Yes, he’d been hopelessly conservative, even reactionary, but he’d taken Conor sailing, to big rugby matches, for long walks in the woods. He’d been exactly what a stereotypical dad should be—outdoorsy, brash yet reticent, and, most of all, emotionally stunted.

He had been a dad who could be loved, because he’d loved his son, and then he couldn’t love his son any more, and he was no longer a dad, and just a man, and a terrible one at that.

How far did unconditional love go? Did you have to love someone who hated you?

Ned would have an answer, Conor knew that—not a straightforward answer, certainly, but something soothing, something loving, that would remind Conor that he was loved no matter what, and inspire him to be good because of that. Ned always had answers and Ned always loved him.

Which brought Conor to a paradox he couldn’t understand—here he was, expecting unconditional love despite not having unconditional love. Maybe this was a different case, because a certain amount of give and take is required, and if someone outright hates you, you don’t have to love them, right?

This was all very hard to understand, and he wanted to talk this all through with Ned, because even when Ned just watched him with gentle, clear eyes, even when he was just talking at Ned, he could come to a better understanding than anything arguments within his head could produce. But Ned was asleep. And when Ned awoke, he would be burdened with his own thoughts, his own fears of inauthenticity that Conor could not quell.

That evening he’d watched Ned stress for hours, knowing he’d eventually crack and say whatever it was he was trying to say. Conor knew he couldn’t press Ned in advance of the cracking, or else delay it further, and would just have to wait, and so he waited in pain until Ned asked his nonsensical question of if he’d sold out.

And Conor couldn’t say, ‘Kind of, but maybe that’s a good thing,’ because Ned would literally meltdown at the 'kind of', before Conor could say anything about it maybe being a good thing.

But Conor had managed to temporarily quell Ned’s fears with real truths, but afterwards, he’d begun again to withdraw into himself, all the ifs, ors, and buts emerging and merging within his head.

And there was nothing Conor could do. And that was very, very scary.

His interior self aside, Ned was the external center of his life, around which uni, work, rugby, music, and other friends revolved. Everything centered around Ned and his relationship to Ned was the connection between his interior self and that external world built on the foundation of Ned. Because what had he had before he met him? Before that scrawny kid in a too-large jumper and unnaturally colored hair walked into their dorm room and his life? Not a whole lot. Many things he’d still loved, but they’d all been rebuilt on a new framework, the solid foundation which Ned provided. Even as he changed over the years and grew as a person, he was still Ned, and Conor loved him more for it.

‘Predestination in retrospect’ said Mr Sherry—they’d built themselves a life which needed the other.

Conor knew what codependency was, having witnessed it in so many pairs of people, romantic and not, and he worried, and he worried, and he worried, until he fell into his own fitful sleep.

Chapter Text

Neither Ned nor Conor had many friends in the city. Conor was, by nature, shy, and Ned, belligerent, so they struggled to talk much to anyone who wasn't the other. The friends they did have had their own best friends and significant others, so the pair spent most Friday nights on the sofa, with Ned reading and Conor playing the guitar. Conor could do a decent portion of the guitar solo from “Brighton Rock” off Queen’s third album by this point, even though it was almost unrecognizable on an acoustic guitar. Ned was slowly working his way through the volumes of Foucault’s History of Sex and would periodically hurl the book he was on down against the sofa in frustration. It wasn’t, to Ned, the kind of frustration that warranted comfort and this happened multiple times an evening so Conor would simply cast him a kind gaze and keep picking out tunes.

That first Friday of term, their quiet evening was interrupted by knocking at the door.

’I’ll get it,’ said Ned, delightedly tossing the book away and bouncing towards the entryway.

Oakley, wearing dramatic eye make up and with her long dark hair teased up high like it was 1985, burst inside as soon as Ned opened the door.

’Hey Oakley,’ shouted Conor from across the space.

’Guys—‘ she paused to catch her breath from apparently dashing up a couple flights of stairs to their flat. ‘Phew. I’m so out of shape. Anyway, guys, I was walking past your building on the way to a party, and I knew you two would be sitting here. And neither of you ever respond to texts, so I decided to just let myself in. Anyway—‘ Oakley was very much a person who said “anyway” a lot— ‘so do you wanna go the party?’

Conor looked up at Ned, still standing in their miniature foyer. Ned gave a vague shrug.

’Sure,’ said Conor, sitting aside his guitar.

’I’ll actually stay here,’ said Ned. ‘I’ve had a long week, and I’d just like to stay here and read.’

Conor froze. He had no reason to be afraid of being alone with Oakley, but that doesn’t mean he wasn’t. Human beings are irrational creatures—the most irrational, even, Ned had said once, and Conor had to agree. Conor has known Oakley for over two years, and she was nearly hysterically outgoing yet very kind and wickedly self-aware, always conscious of others’ reactions to and around her, and thus always capable of making people feel welcomed in her presence. If Conor were not Conor and pathologically shy, he would not be afraid to be alone with her.

This was the terrifying moment when Conor realized that Oakley had to be aware of his reluctance, and his realization was confirmed when she said, ‘You don’t have to come if you don’t want to.’

’No, I do,’ said Conor, and he meant it. ‘All your friends are very nice, and I’d like to get to know them better,’ and he meant all of that too. Why was he so afraid?

Oakley clapped her hands, almost like a child. ‘That’s so exciting! Come on then. Get your shoes on. I have a bottle of vodka with me in my bag, so you don't have to bring anything. We’re gonna have fun.’

So Conor put his shoes on and kissed Ned good bye and then he was out the door, surrounded by the emotionally invigorating presence of Oakley. She was taller than Conor and nearly scrawny, but elegant in her way. She’d been a fencer before she’d come out at age 16 as a trans girl, and, years removed from the activity she’d been de facto banned from, still moved like one, all strong, sharp movements. She was incredibly careful, but never delicate, and she was a continual source of fascination for both Ned and Conor.

Conor knew Ned would never cheat on him, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t spent the first year of uni worrying he’d be replaced by Oakley. Or that he was keeping Ned from a better life. He never was. Ned explained to him that he was Oakley’s best friend but that Conor was still and always his best friend. That had been the major source of contention, and the only one, because Oakley never expected nor demanded any more than she got, and eventually fell for her second best friend, who’d been crushing on her for ages, and everything had been hunky-dory since. Now her girlfriend was spending a term studying in the States and this was Oakley’s first Friday night alone.

Despite her self-awareness, she had massively self-destructive tendencies, and Conor worried about her. He knew that people imagined him to be unperceptive, a literal big dumb jock with anger issues, but he was a kind, caring individual, or so he’d been told, and being thoughtful, regardless of his interest or lack thereof in Foucault, came with that territory.

The pair chatted amicably about nothing until they were standing on the flat's threshold, when the door opened as if by magic and they were inside. There weren't that many people. Not like at some of the house parties he'd been to, but there were people, more strangers, that is, than he was used to.

‘Hi everybody! Look I brought Conor Masters!’

‘You're Ned's boyfriend?’

‘Yes-‘ and a beer was in his hands, ‘Thank you-‘

Conor may have been shy and retiring, like a wild animal, but he was kind and genuine. Simple, some people called him, but those people read entirely too much Foucault and hadn't spoken to nearly enough human beings about actual human being things. Real people, on the other hand, flocked to him because he was a real person, and despite being so intensely private, wore his humanity on his sleeve.

Some kind-eyed, nerdy guy whom Conor vaguely recognized plopped down on the floor next to him. The guy’s name was Jo(h)n, with or without the ‘h’.

‘So you and Ned...?’

Conor laughed, confusedly. ‘We what?’

‘You've, been together, a while, right?’

‘Since we were seventeen or so.’

‘And you're twenty now?’

‘Well, Ned is. I'm twenty-one.’

‘The two of you are very different.’

‘We have more in common than you may think.’

‘Like what?’

‘Well, we’re gay for starters.’

The guy laughed, gently and genuinely. ‘I need a smoke. Wanna go hang out on the balcony?’

‘Yeah, sure,’ and Conor picked up his beer and followed Jo(h)n out onto this mysterious balcony.

Jo(h)n took a cig out of a packet from his pocket, offered it to Conor, who shook his head, and lit it up, exhaling a toxic cloud, sweet-tasting and chicory-smelling. Conor really did understand the appeal of smoking, and why Ned kept a packet for his own uses on the rare occasion they got drunk for the purpose of getting drunk.

’Actually,’ said Conor, his voice slightly shaky, ‘can I bum one after all?’

’Sure, man,’ and Jo(h)n fished out another cigarette and the lighter. ‘But don’t you play rugby?’

‘I won’t tell the rugby gods if you don’t,’ Conor winked, getting a laugh from Jo(h)n. He’d seen Ned light up enough before and he’d smoked weed from a pipe a couple times, so he knew in theory how to light a cigarette. But he tried and failed because his fingers were unskilled and furthermore the lighter was low on fluid so Jo(h)n let him light the cigarette off the end of his own.

’So tell me, Conor the rugby guy who studies—?’

’Urban policy.’

’Conor the rugby guy who studies urban policy. Tell me how you’re dating an English lit student who loves Joy Division more than his own self?’

Conor smiled, a smile that felt almost too close to his Ned smile, ‘I’m actually a better musician than Ned. That’s what we bonded over. That and being gay.’

Electricity is a hesitant force. It only moves where it knows it can. Then, how was Conor feeling that very particular exploratory spark about him for the first time since before he and Ned had gotten together? The electricity he’d only experienced with Ned? Conor saw a whole world play out before his eyes—a world where he wasn’t dating Ned, where he would go to this Jo(h)n’s flat, drink his whiskey, and suck his dick. Jo(h)n was looking at him with hesitant,guilty desire. If Conor were not in love, he would fuck this guy. This guy he didn’t even want to fuck, but knew he could.

Conor turned away, leaned out on the balcony, huffing the cig down to the filter. He put it out against the wrought-iron railing, grasped between his forefinger and thumb, and turned back to Jo(h)n.

’So is your name spelled with or without the “h”?’

‘Without.’ Jon didn’t smile, but he didn’t frown either.

’I love Ned, Jon. I love him so much. Thanks for the cigarette,’ and he smiled kindly, took another sip of his beer, and left Jon out on the balcony, his stomach reeling, in search of Oakley.