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His eyes are closed and his body is at rest. His mind, however, insists on replaying the most recent events on an endless loop behind his eyelids.
There’s an open window, the sound of screams in the distance, Frank reaching but not quite grasping…
He opens his eyes abruptly, the memory dissipating, like foam in the ocean waves.
Rolling on his back, he fixes his gaze on the night shadows on the room’s ceiling.
The loop restarts, the shadows moving, recreating the scene before his very eyes, his muscles tensing, as if he was back in that room, watching someone about to act on his last desperate impulse.
His breathing comes out shallower and quicker, his heartbeat picking up to match its pace.
He sits up in bed and runs his hands through his hair, letting them drag down against his face. He’s exhausted and he’s barely even started.
What is all of this worth, when one wrong step results in such major casualties?
Legs up close to his chest, he fights off the shivering, not even sure if it’s a result of the coldness of his room, the coldness he feels gripping his insides, or even the nightmare still crawling underneath his skin.
He chuckles to himself.
A few weeks ago, everything was perfect and going according to plan. And now? Now it’s all a hot mess and he doesn’t even know how to start fixing it all.
He knows the problem was much bigger than his part in it. It was a time bomb waiting to go off, but…
Maybe they should have stopped Trudeau from verbally attacking her employer. Would that have saved him? Would that have kept the tick-tock going for a few more seconds? What if they had had that conversation elsewhere, away from windows or balconies? Would they have brushed it all off their shoulders before Connor could feel somewhat responsible for someone’s death?
That’s it, isn’t it? All the “buts”, all the “maybes”, all the “ifs”. Would anything have changed at all, really? Isn’t this some sort of cosmic balance or just a big cosmic joke?
Sure, the guy had deserved to hear some of those things, but certainly not as much as his boss seemed to think so. She became unnecessarily cruel as her anger slowly started to unravel.
Did she not see the effect she was having on the poor bastard? Could she not see that enough was enough and that she was reaching that line, the point of no return?
He gulps and picks his phone from the nightstand.
The recording is still there.
Funny how the guy is gone now, but when he touches the play button, his voice resonates so clearly across the empty room.
Images flash before his eyes. That voice linked to the body arching beneath him, hot hands roaming, mapping his back – the same hands that had helped him get on that window, the same body that had lain lifeless on the cold concrete.
With tears burning in his eyes, he quickly deletes the file. They’ve gotten what they needed. The case is solved. There’s no need to keep the imprint of a dead person who didn’t even matter to Connor.
Didn’t even matter. And yet he’d gotten him killed.
No, he knows. He knows it was ultimately the man’s decision. He fell from that window all by himself, not because Connor pushed him. But wasn’t Connor’s plan somehow one of the actions that kick-started the whole thing?
He wipes his eyes furiously and throws the phone on the floor.
How can someone die and leave behind such a turmoil of feelings plaguing someone they barely even knew?
Maybe Oliver was right. Part of him really was angry because he’d been played. But it had been a mutual backstabbing. And you should have seen the other guy.
And Oliver…
He’d fucked up. It’s not that he wasn’t right, in a way. He wasn’t necessarily the bad guy here. They hadn’t set down any rules, had they? They hadn’t reached that point yet, and Connor was honestly afraid that doing so would somehow change what they had, put down a label Connor wasn’t yet ready to put a name to.
But the opportunity had presented himself, and it had been so easy to fall back into old habits. Sex was just that. Sometimes just a means to an end.
He hadn’t ever been at a place where he’d have to consider someone else before acting on what was now muscle memory. It wasn’t what he was used to. It was a foreign concept.
They really hadn’t discussed any exclusivity terms, that’s what he’d told himself before closing that office door. That was how he was going to explain all of it, if it ever came up.
But, again, he figures that, even if unconsciously, part of him knew it wasn’t supposed to be like that. When Oliver first asked how he got the recording, Connor hesitated, mind freezing for a second before delivering the well-rehearsed “I don’t want to compromise you” line.
So he let it go, didn’t let it cloud his mind anymore. And that worked up until Oliver got his hands on that file and actually listened to the whole thing.
Much like he did at the time, he now closes his eyes with a deep sigh, and lets his head thump back softly against the headboard.
The moment he opened his mouth to defend himself, he knew it wasn’t the right thing to say. The way Oliver tensed up and looked at him with a pointed stare, rolled in a mix of anger, hurt and disappointment, is something that is consistently pressing on the back of his mind ever since that door slammed shut in his face.
He was treated almost like a cheater. And the weird thing is that he actually felt like one, as if he deserved it, when they weren’t actually boyfriends nor were in an otherwise committed relationship.
He shakes his head just thinking about it. He tried to fix it, begged Oliver not to make a big deal of it, because that guy meant nothing to him. Still doesn’t; he’s nothing but a nightmare Connor can’t wait to get rid of.
But his words hadn’t been enough and the other man had kicked him out. And now he’s sitting in his bed, arms crossed and resting on his knees, all alone with these tormenting thoughts eating away at him and keeping him awake.
He feels like laughing and crying, because his life is a big sad joke.
Instead, he grabs one of his pillows and screams into it, legs thrashing, body decompressing.
Eventually, letting all his frustrations out brings a new sense of tiredness and he falls asleep, curled up against his pillow.
Tears are drying on his face, but, for now, his mind is finally at rest, enveloped in white noise.